Title: Modelling of stable angle-based instability threat indicator for articulated off-road vehicles

Authors: Qingyuan Zhu; Haoyu Chen; Jian Yi; Chenglu Wen; Huosheng Hu

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China ' Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China ' Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China ' Fujian Key Laboratory of the Brain-like Intelligent Systems, Cognitive Science Department, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China ' School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK

Abstract: This paper presents the modelling and simulation of a stable angle-based instability threat indicator for articulated off-road vehicles. First, a stable angle is represented by the vertical forces of four wheels and steering angle of an off-road articulated steer vehicle. Then a vehicle prototype model is built based on a specific wheel loader type and a tyre/terrain model. Finally, the prototype model and tyre/terrain model are imported to the multi-body dynamics analysis software-ADAMS to conduct a number of simulations using the stable angle-based instability threat indicator. Simulation results indicate that a stable angle of 80.5° is the threshold angle for lateral instability, and a stable angle of 90° is the threshold angle for longitudinal instability of this model. Compared with the traditional instability indicating methods for off-road vehicles, the proposed stable angle-based method is more efficient and can deal with both lateral and longitudinal instability of an articulated vehicle effectively.

Keywords: modelling; off-road vehicles; articulated vehicles; instability threat indicators; ADAMS simulation; wheel loader; tyre-terrain models; multibody dynamics; lateral instability; longitudinal instability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2014.062367

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2014 Vol.49 No.3/4, pp.316 - 324

Published online: 02 Mar 2015 *

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