Title: Assessment of the dynamic stability of mine-rollers equipped heavy vehicle

Authors: Mostafa I. Yacoub; Mootaz E. Abo-Elnor; Ahmed M. Ali; Ibrahim A. Elsherif; Mohamed A. El-Latif; Alhossein Mostafa Sharaf

Addresses: Automotive Engineering Department, Military Technical College, P.O. Box 11766, Cairo, Egypt ' Mechanical Equipment Engineering Department, Military Technical College, P.O. Box 11766, Cairo, Egypt ' Automotive Engineering Department, Military Technical College, P.O. Box 11766, Cairo, Egypt ' Mechatronics Engineering Department, Military Technical College, P.O. Box 11766, Cairo, Egypt ' Mechanical Design and Production Department, Military Technical College, P.O. Box 11766, Cairo, Egypt ' Automotive Engineering Department, Military Technical College, P.O. Box 11766, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract: One of the strategies to protect vehicle platoons against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is to use a mine-rollers mounted at the front of the vehicle with a telescopic lever and fork ended up with two sets of freely rotating solid tyres. However, rough vehicle handling or cornering instability conditions may be encountered particularly at high speeds. This paper presents a detailed investigation to ensure sufficient handling and stability of mine rollers-equipped vehicle. In the design phase both the kinematic and dynamic analyses are illustrated. The mathematical analysis of the dynamic stability problem is validated by in-field measurements of real mine rollers-equipped heavy vehicle. Results show that vehicle stability could be achieved using pre-manufacturing mathematical analysis illustrated in this paper. Furthermore, the analysis is extended to address the effect of some mine-rollers design parameters, like increasing setup length and weight which would certainly enhance the protection of the mobile platoon.

Keywords: mine-rollers; heavy vehicle stability; handling performance; convoying security; constant radius test; double-lane change test; tyre cornering stiffness; tyre sinkage; steering stress analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHVS.2025.144161

International Journal of Heavy Vehicle Systems, 2025 Vol.32 No.1, pp.1 - 30

Received: 17 May 2022
Accepted: 21 May 2022
Published online: 30 Jan 2025 *

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