Failure analysis of the rubber track of a tracked transporter

Weiwei Liu,Kai Cheng,Jun Wang

doi:10.1177/1687814018789526

Weiwei Liu, Kai Cheng + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814018789526

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Abstract

Rubber-tracked transporters are becoming increasingly popular in agriculture, forestry and military transportation. Rubber track systems are typically fitted instead of using tyres on the transporter to decrease soil stress and increase trafficability. Therefore, the accurate failure analysis of a rubber track is important. A model for predicting stress distribution along a rubber track is presented in this study. In the model, the stress along a rubber track consists of the vertical stress below the rubber track, tensile stress, bending stress and centrifugal tensile stress. Moreover, fourth strength theory was used to change a complicated stress state to a simple stress state. An experiment was performed at the test site of Harbin First Machinery Building Group Ltd, with a total weight of 61.789 kN. The experiment was conducted to verify and approve the theoretical model. The Miner rule was used to predict the cycle index and working hour of the rubber track, thereby providing a method for predicting the fatigue life of a rubber track.

Highlights

Rubber track systems that replace tyres on transporters have become increasingly popular in recent years
If the tracked transporter works 8 h every day, rubber track fatigue failure occurs after 750 days
Fatigue failure appeared on zones g–i along the rubber track (Figure 3) because the stress for these zones was the largest along the rubber track

Summary

Introduction

Rubber track systems that replace tyres on transporters have become increasingly popular in recent years. Rubber track systems are fitted mainly on transporters used in the fields of agriculture, forestry and the military. What’s more, the tension of the rubber crawler on the idle roller was obtained through tests.[4] Peng et al designed a set of reasonable experimental devices and methods to analyse the structure and principle of a rubber-tracked vehicle walking system. The relationship between force and shear deformation of the rubber track was obtained by tests.[5] G Fedorko et al.[6] researched the tension force, deformation and failure life of a rubber conveyor belt by experiments. F Hakami et al.[8] investigated the wear mechanisms of a rubber conveyor belt which affect the failure life

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