GROUND LOADING BY TRACKS OF TRACK MACHINES: REVIEW OF DESIGN SCHEMES

Abstract

The results of investigations in the field of existing soil loading schemes by tracks of tracked vehicles and their effect on the traction force realized by a caterpillar propulsion device are presented. The review shows that most researchers emphasize the important role of lugs in the creation of tractive effort. However, most of the existing methods of calculating the traction force on the clutch are based on one or another specific design scheme that does not depend on the loads acting on the tracks, on the combination of the parameters of the grousers and on the physical and mechanical properties of the soil. The use of these methods does not allow us to consider the sequence and alternative variants of soil disruption, and also to establish a relationship between the magnitude of the tangential force acting on the tract with a wide range of combinations of geometric parameters of the grousers, and to link it to the physical processes taking place in the soil. Consequently, these methods do not fully describe the interaction of the crawler tracks with the ground, which makes it difficult to use them to optimize the geometric parameters of the lugs. The authors proposed an analytical method for analyzing the interaction of soil with a track of a caterpillar engine based on the regularities of the theory of the limiting state of ground masses and the main provisions used in the theory of cutting soil, taking into account the revealed features of this interaction, which makes it possible to investigate the interaction of tracks of a caterpillar propulsion with soil, taking into account the multiphase and alternative options for the destruction of soil between the grousers. This method allows you to choose the parameters of the lugs, providing an improvement in traction and coupling properties of crawler tractors.