Title: Lateral stability simulation and analysis for wheel loaders based on the steady-state margin angle

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

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China ' Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China ' Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China ' School of Information Science and Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China ' School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK

Abstract: Wheel loaders are prone to lateral tilting accidents due to their complex working environment, variable structure frame and the large offset of the centroid position. The accidents may seriously threaten the driver's safety. This paper proposes a steady-state margin (SSM) angle as a new instability threat indicator to analyse lateral stability of wheel loaders. Firstly, the structural characteristics and the rollover process of a wheel loader are presented, and the SSM angle is defined. Secondly, on the assumption that the tyres are rigid, the calculation process of the SSM angle is described in detail, then the SSM angle of the XG953 wheel loader is computed. A virtual prototyping simulation was performed under the environment of ADAMS. The maximum relative error between the theoretical calculation and simulated result was 4.55%, within the permissible speed range. When changing the tyre parameters to normal tyre parameters, the relative error became larger. Finally, an indirect method is proposed to deal with the influence of tyres on the SSM angle and reduce the relative error.

Keywords: wheel loaders; lateral stability; steady-state margin angle; ADAMS; simulation; lateral tilting accidents; driver safety; instability threat indicator; virtual prototyping; tyres; tyre influence.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2014.065337

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2014 Vol.22 No.3, pp.185 - 194

Published online: 30 Oct 2014 *

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