A Study on Steering Performance of Four-Column Tracked Vehicle on Extremely Cohesive Soft Soil

Abstract

This paper concerns about steering performance of four-column tracked vehicle crawling on extremely cohesive soft soil, of which each side is composed of parallel two tracks. The four- column tracked vehicle is assumed as rigid body with 6-dof. The dynamic analysis program of tracked vehicle is developed using Newmark’s method and incremental-iterative method. A terramechanics model of cohesive soft soil is implemented in form of relationships: normal pressure to sinkage, shear resistance to shear displacement, and dynamic sinkage to shear displacement. In order to investigate steering performance between the four-column tracked vehicle and the two-column tracked vehicle, a series of dynamic simulations are conducted with respect to change of pitches between caterpillars of left and right side, change of steering ratios, change of velocity ratios between left and right caterpillar and so on.