com
Journal
ScienceDirect of
Terramechanics
Journal of Terramechanics 50 (2013) 303310
www.elsevier.com/locate/jterra
Received 17 September 2012; received in revised form 28 September 2013; accepted 28 September 2013
Available online 22 October 2013
Abstract
The wheel mobility number is a dimensionless variable used to predict the combined eect of tire and soil parameters on tractive per-
formance. As the mobility number increases, the tractive performance improves. The wheel mobility number depends on soil strength,
tire load, and tire geometry (width, diameter, section height, and deection). The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the eect of
tire and soil parameters on vehicle mobility. For this purpose, the soil strength is obtained experimentally using an electronic cone pen-
etrometer. The tire geometry is obtained by experimental testing at dierent loads, from 2 to 6 kN. This includes the eect of the var-
iation of tire ination pressure from 100 to 250 kPa on tire section height and tire width. The tire ination pressure, tire width, and wheel
diameter are used as independent variables to investigate the relative wheel numeric. The eect of the soil strength, tire load, and tire
geometry, as dependent variables, on the wheel mobility number, is also investigated. The results show that the mobility number
increases when soil strength and tire diameter increase, and tire width, tire load, and tire pressure decrease. Based on theoretical analysis
and experimental testing, a proposed wheel mobility number is introduced. It depends on the wheel numeric and the square root of the
dierence between the tire section height and the tire deection, divided by the tire diameter. Using the proposed wheel mobility number,
the vehicle mobility is predicted and a very good correlation with experimental data is obtained.
2013 ISTVS. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Mobility number; Soil strength; Tire pressure; Tire geometry; Vehicle performance
Nomenclature
out that soil shear strength was somewhat correlated with The wheel mobility number investigated by Freitag [4] is
penetration resistance, and introduced a soil shear factor CIbd
into the model. Brixius [8,9] developed a more generalized NF kF 3
W
expression for tractive characteristics of bias-ply pneumatic
tires based on a modied mobility number. Maclaurin where kF is a coecient introduced by Freitag and dened
[1013] studied the inuence of soil surface properties as
r
and tire patterns on wheel performance using the Water- d
ways Experiment Station (WES) method as a frame of ref- kF
h
erence. Rowland [14,15] developed WES models based on a
new wheel numeric. Several other authors around the The wheel mobility number investigated by Turnage [5]
world have used these models, or presented improved ver- is
sions of empirical mobility models using penetrometer CIbd
resistance as soil parameter. NT kT 4
W
The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the
where kT is a coecient introduced by Turnage and dened
eect of tire and soil parameters on vehicle mobility. Using
as
experimental parameters for soil strength and tire parame- r
ters a case study is carried out to investigate their eects on d 1
the wheel mobility number and, accordingly, on vehicle kT
h 1 2db
performance. Based on theoretical and experimental test-
ing, a proposed wheel mobility number is introduced. The wheel mobility number investigated by Brixius [8,9]
is
2. wheel mobility number CIbd
NB kB 5
W
The wheel numeric, N, given in Eq. (1), is a dimension-
where kB is a coecient introduced by Brixius and dened
less variable that depends on tire load, W, tire width, b, tire
as
diameter, d, and soil strength (via the cone index, CI). !
CIbd 1 5dh
N 1 kB
W 1 3b
d
The wheel mobility number is also a dimensionless var- The wheel mobility number investigated by Maclaurin
iable that depends on the wheel numeric. Dierent authors [1013] is
have proposed dierent empirical models for the wheel
CIbd
mobility number, tting combinations of tire dimensions NM kM 6
with observed tire performance to compute the coecient W
that multiplies the wheel numeric. The relations below revi- where kM is a coecient introduced by Maclaurin and de-
sit some of the most commonly known wheel mobility ned as
formulae.
d0:4
The simple wheel mobility number investigated by Wis- kM
mer and Luth [3] is b0:2 d 0:2
CIbd The wheel mobility number investigated by Rowland
NW kW 2 and Peel [14,15] is
W
CIbd
where kW is a coecient introduced by Wismer and Luth, NR kR 7
kW = 1 W
S. Hegazy, C. Sandu / Journal of Terramechanics 50 (2013) 303310 305
where kR is a coecient introduced by Rowland and Peel ent tire loads, as collected from the experiments, is given in
and dened as Table 1.
r Please note the consistency of the experimental data pre-
d 0:15 d
k R 0:15 sented in Table 1 with common observations. For example,
b h the eect of changing the ination pressure from 100 kPa
to 200 kPa, while maintaining the tire load constant at
3. Experimental testing 2 kN, is a decrease in the tire width (from 214 mm to
209 mm), an increase in the tire height (from 161 mm to
The experimental testing includes soil strength and tire 173 mm), and a decrease in the tire deection (from
parameters determination required for the wheel mobility 13 mm to 10 mm). To see how the vertical load applied
number evaluations. on the tire inuences the parameters recorded, for an ina-
tion pressure of 200 kPa, for example, if the load increases
3.1. Soil testing from 2 kN to 6 kN, the tire width increases (from 209 mm
to 217 mm), the tire height decreases (from 173 mm to
The soil strength is often represented by the cone index, 160 mm), and the tire deection increases (from 10 mm to
CI, which is the average force per unit area required to push 15 mm). The analysis in this study is based on the experi-
a cone shaped probe vertically into the soil at a steady rate. mental data presented in Table 1.
The average trac cone index for the top 150 mm layer of For the second method, which has been employed in
soil is used. The soil strength of loose sand has been [17], the tire pressure is increased to compensate for the tire
obtained in this study using a cone penetrometer in a soil load, keeping the tire parameters (diameter, width, and sec-
bin, where the pressure corresponding to this force is an tion height) constant, as shown in Table 2 [17].
index of the soil resistance. The variation of the cone index
with penetration depth for loose sand is shown in Fig. 1. 4. Wheel mobility investigation
Multiple tests have been performed. Each test is illustrated
in Fig. 1 by a dierent symbol. All the data collected has 4.1. Evaluation of relative wheel numeric
been included in an Excel le; the best-t curve for all the
measurements has been obtained using the respective Excel The relative wheel numeric is dened as the ratio
function, and it is shown in Fig. 1 with the continuous line. between the wheel numeric computed using the varying
input variable and the wheel numeric computed using the
3.2. Tire testing nominal value of the input variable. The relative wheel
mobility number is computed in a similar manner.
There are two main methods that could be employed for For the purpose of this evaluation, the tire ination
tire testing with the scope of identifying the tire parameters. pressure (which inuences the tire deection), the tire
The rst method involves testing the tire at dierent loads width, and the wheel diameter are used as independent
and ination pressure values. For example, in this study, variables [18]. The following are considered as nominal val-
using single wheel tester [16], the tire parameters of tire size ues: a soil with a cone index of CI = 400 kPa (e.g., sandy
7.5-R16 (i.e., undeformed tire width of 190.5 mm, tire rim soil), and a tire under a load W = 4 kN, of tire diameter
of 406.4 mm diameter) are obtained experimentally by d = 790 mm, tire width b = 220 mm, and tire ination pres-
ultrasonic sensors at dierent ination pressures, varying sure p = 150 kPa. In this paper we present the variation of
from 100 to 250 kPa, and at dierent tire loads, varying the relative wheel mobility number with tire width and with
from 2 to 6 kN. The eect of the tire ination pressure tire diameter.
on tire width, tire diameter and tire section height at dier- The relative wheel mobility is computed for the tire width
as an input variable taking the values 214 mm, 218 mm,
220 mm, 223 mm, 225 mm and 226 mm, and keeping all
the other parameters xed. Fig. 2 shows the variation of
the relative mobility number with tire width for the mobility
number formulations by Freitag, Turnage, Brixius, Row-
land, and Maclaurin. It is clear that the relative mobility
number is equal to 1 for the nominal tire width value of
220 mm for all formulations. Although the slope of each rel-
ative mobility number versus tire width is slightly dierent,
all models indicate the same trend.
The relative wheel mobility is next computed for the tire
diameter as an input variable taking the values 775 mm,
780 mm, 785 mm, 790 mm, 795 mm and 800 mm, and keep-
ing all the other parameters xed. Fig. 3 shows the variation
Fig. 1. Variation of soil strength with penetration depth. of the relative mobility number with tire diameter for the
306 S. Hegazy, C. Sandu / Journal of Terramechanics 50 (2013) 303310
GT
ltr 0:881 e0:1N HS 1 e0:75s 0:04 9
W
MR 1 0:5s
lmrr p 0:04 10
W N HS N HS
The net traction (NT) is a force in the direction of
travel developed by the traction device and trans-
ferred to the vehicle. The net traction ratio is
expressed in
NT
lntr ltr lmrr
W
Fig. 6. Variation of wheel numeric with tire diameter. 1 0:5s
0:881 e0:1N HS 1 e0:75s p 11
N HS N HS
(R1, as shown in Fig. 9) divided by tire diameter. The coef- The tractive eciency (TE) of a driving wheel is dened
cient of the proposed wheel numeric has been determined as the ratio of the output power to the input power. By
based on results given in Table 1 and soil strength with dividing both numerator and denominator by tire load
400 kPa. A comparison between dierent coecients inves- and substituting the actual speed and theoretical speed with
tigated by authors [4,9,10,13] and the proposed wheel (1 s). TE is expressed in
numeric coecient is given in Tables 35. The proposed NT =W
results are very close to Rowland and Peel [14,15] and also TE 1 s 12
GT =W
equivalent to the average coecients obtained by other
researchers [4,9,10,13], especially at low pressure. The wheel numeric proposed has been computed
CIbd according to their respective Eqs. (3)(8) for tire ination
N HS k HS pressures of 100 kPa, 150 kPa, and 200 kPa, and presented
W
r r 8 in Tables 6, 7, and 8 respectively.
hd R1 One may notice that the proposed wheel numeric coe-
k HS
d d cient decreases with an increase in tire load, while the other
where kHS is the proposed coecient, R1 is the loaded coecients increase. This is not an error, since these coe-
height, and d is the tire diameter, as shown in Fig. 9. cients have only been developed to bring the estimated vehi-
Using the proposed wheel numeric given in Eq. (8), the cle performance parameters closer to the experimentally
vehicle performance has been investigated in terms of net collected data. As it can be seen in Figs. 10 and 11, the pro-
posed coecient performs the best among all of those ana-
lyzed, providing the best prediction of the vehicle mobility.
Table 5
Tire parameters used to study the eect of the tire ination pressure on the
wheel numeric.
CI Pressure Load Width, b Diameter, d Wheel
(kPa) (kPa) (kN) (m) (m) numeric, N
400 101 10 0.317 0.892 11.3106
400 202 20 0.317 0.892 5.65528
400 303 30 0.317 0.892 3.77019
400 404 40 0.317 0.892 2.82764
400 505 50 0.317 0.892 2.26211
Fig. 7. Variation of wheel numeric with tire load.
S. Hegazy, C. Sandu / Journal of Terramechanics 50 (2013) 303310 309
Table 8
Wheel numeric coecient values for a tire pressure of 200 kPa.
Tire Brixius, Freitag, Maclaurin, Rowland, Proposed,
load, W kB kF kM kR kHS
(kN)
2 0.698822 0.240424 0.230061078 0.290770739 0.46857
3 0.711417 0.255125 0.239129085 0.307547186 0.46415
4 0.73852 0.280692 0.255634159 0.336956946 0.458387
5 0.753202 0.293069 0.26344518 0.351203953 0.455418
6 0.766932 0.306186 0.2708456 0.365875861 0.451468
Fig. 9. Tire deection. Fig. 10. Variation of net traction ratio with slip ratio (load 2 kN, pressure
100 kPa).
Table 6
Wheel numeric coecient values for a tire pressure of 100 kPa.
Tire Brixius, Freitag, Maclaurin, Rowland, Proposed,
load, W kB kF kM kR kHS
(kN)
2 0.739816 0.284157 0.256203347 0.340548532 0.454838
3 0.752684 0.302495 0.264203806 0.360218043 0.446124
4 0.785133 0.331042 0.27922978 0.392040176 0.436468
5 0.803812 0.348466 0.286669477 0.410929736 0.428657
6 0.841889 0.376552 0.300444079 0.442051623 0.418886
Table 7
Wheel numeric coecient values for a tire pressure of 150 kPa.
Tire Brixius, Freitag, Maclaurin, Rowland, Proposed,
load, W kB kF kM kR kHS Fig. 11. Variation of tractive eciency with slip ratio (load 2 kN, pressure
(kN) 100 kPa).
2 0.712722 0.253629 0.239096153 0.306211053 0.46581
3 0.740147 0.280692 0.255873741 0.337193768 0.458387
4 0.754439 0.295804 0.263887452 0.354035526 0.452704
5 0.769029 0.310087 0.271458899 0.369908853 0.447722
6 0.8004 0.33665 0.285759565 0.399563787 0.439228
are also in excellent correlation with the prediction per- other wheel mobility numbers. The tractive eciency has
formed using the proposed wheel numeric. been benchmarked against results obtained from other
Fig. 11 shows the variation of the tractive eciency with studies and it shows that the eciency calculated with the
the slip of the driving wheel at dierent wheel mobility proposed number ts well within the range of values
numbers: the one proposed in this study, Rowland, Frei- obtained by other studies, and it is closer to the one calcu-
tag, and Brixius [4,8,9,14,15]. The tractive eciency lated based on Rowlands wheel mobility number.
reaches a maximum at a relatively low slip, especially for
high wheel mobility numbers, and then decreases with Appendix A
increasing slip. The output results are compared with
results from [8] and a good agreement has been obtained. See Fig. A1.
5. Conclusions References
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