Buckling Safety Assessment for the Multi-Axle Steering Linkage of an 8x8 Special Purpose Vehicle

Abstract

Vehicle steering mechanisms are generally considered as safety sub-systems due to their control and stability functions. Therefore, structural elements of a steering linkage should strictly resist the service loads without any overload failure. This paper reports an exemplary case study on the buckling evaluation of the multi-axle steering linkage tie rods which will be used in an 8x8 special purpose vehicle. In the first part of the study, full multibody dynamics (MBD) model of the vehicle including the steering linkage was composed by using Adams/Car™ commercial software. With this model, handling simulations were carried out to determine the service loads for various driving conditions. In order to verify the MBD model, reaction forces occur at the linkage joints were also calculated by using detailed finite element (FE) model of the entire system for the same driving conditions. In the final part of the work, buckling safety of the tie rods was assessed for the critical load case. In this way suitability of the system was evaluated in terms of buckling.