APPLICATIONS OF A COMPUTER-AIDED METHOD TO PARAMETRIC STUDY OF TRACKED VEHICLES WITH RIGID LINKS

This paper demonstrates the applications of a computer aided method (CAM) to the parametric study of tracked vehicles with rigid links, commonly in use in agriculture, construction and logging. The results of the study show that the track pitch, number of road-wheels, initial track tension and location of the centre of gravity have a noticeable effect on tractive performance over soft terrain. It is also found that by careful selection of a combination of design parameters, vehicle performance can be significantly improved. It is shown that the computer aided method can play a significant role in design optimization of tracked vehicles with rigid links and in the evaluation of vehicle candidates for a given mission and environment.