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Title: Utility Truck: Morphing Boom Equipment for Terrain Mobility
Utility trucks with boom equipment function on environmentally sensitive areas and severe terrains where off-road conditions may cause significant damage to the trucks’ mobility and their safe operation. Indeed, considerable variations of landscape elevation and dynamic changes of terrain properties lead to extensive differences in the wheel normal reactions, drastic fluctuations of the rolling resistance at each tire, and finally, substantial changes in the total resistance to motion, which includes both the tire rolling resistance and the resistance due to the truck gravity component. Additionally, lateral forces caused by truck inclinations can lead to instability in motion, too. As a result, a utility truck can become immobilized in either longitudinal or lateral direction of movement because of one or the combination of the following events – loss of longitudinal mobility due to extensive tire slippage at some/all wheels, loss of lateral mobility due to tire side skid or rollover of the truck. To eliminate the above-listed causes that can lead to the utility truck immobilization, this study suggests a novel approach to managing the input/output factors that influence both longitudinal and lateral forces of the utility truck. In fact, the 3D morphing of the boom equipment is proposed as the input factor for managing the wheel normal reactions as the outputs. Ultimately, a changeable positioning of the boom equipment relative to the truck frame results in variable wheel normal reactions, which are the main contributors to the normal tire deformation and soil compaction, and thus, to the rolling resistance of each and all tires. This paper presents and discusses the method and results of computational simulations of the F450-based utility truck with boom equipment on medium mineral soil. The normal reaction at each wheel is evaluated under which the boom equipment morphs safely without causing roll over of the truck and, consequently, the total resistance to the motion force is determined. Modeling and simulation of the truck were conducted with the use of terramechanics-based tire-terrain models. This research study of the rolling resistance contributes to a research project on morphing utility truck, dynamics in severe terrain conditions. Keywords: Utility Truck, Morphing, Terrain Mobility  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1849264
NSF-PAR ID:
10316648
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
20th International Conference and 9th Americas Conference of ISTVS 2021
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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