Experimental study on the ride comfort of a crawler power chassis scale model based on the similitude theory

Abstract

The ride comfort experimental assessment of crawler off-road vehicle is relatively overlooked, and is expensive and difficult to execute with higher and higher ride comfort performance requirements. To trade off between precise and cost, an experimental method based on the similitude theory is proposed. Under the guidance of the similitude theory, a 1:5 crawler power chassis scale model equipped with a kind of variable stiffness suspension system is used. The power spectrum density(PSD), the root mean square(RMS) of weighed acceleration, peak factor, average absorbed power(AAP) and vibration dose value(VDV) are selected as ride comfort evaluation indexes, and tests results are transformed via similarity indexes to predict the performance of full-scale power chassis. PSD shows that the low-order natural frequency of the vertical natural frequency(z axis) is 1.1 Hz, and the RMS, AAP and VDV values indicate the ride comfort performance of this kind of power chassis is between the “A little uncomfortable” and “Rather uncomfortable”. From the results, low-order vertical natural frequency, obtained by PSD, validates that the similarity relationship between two models is satisfied, and 1:5 scale model used in experiment meets the similarity relationship with the full-scale model; consequently, the ride comfort prophase evaluation with the 1:5 scale model is feasible. The attempt of applying the similitude theory to crawler vehicle ride comfort test study decreases the cost and improves the test feasibility with sufficient test precise.