A study on the driving performance of a tracked vehicle on an inclined plane according to the position of buoyancy

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a numerical simulation of tracked vehicles for studying of driving performance on an inclined plane. In this paper, a tracked vehicle model of a miner of a deep-sea mining system is selected as an example for a numerical analysis model. Cohesive soft soil model and hard soil model are used in this paper. In order to investigate and analyze dynamic responses of tracked vehicles with respect to the change of the buoyancy position, the numerical simulation of the tracked vehicle was performed using commercial software. The numerical model of the tracked vehicle is composed of chassis module, track subsystem module and buoyancy module. Terra-mechanics of the soil model is implemented using the user defined subroutine of commercial software. Hydrostatic forces of the tracked vehicle are included in the simulation model. A series of dynamic simulations is conducted with respect to driving velocities, soil properties, gradient of inclined plane, and position of buoyancy and so on. Copyright ？ 2011 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE).