The paper presents the following successive steps for
dimensioning support structures for commercial vehicles:
- development of a computational model
- determination of collective loading
- stress calculation
- selection of a service-life hypothesis
- interpretation for dimensioning
These subjects are discussed individually.
Many applications of this method have led to the following
conclusions:
The type of vehicle operation is of paramount importance. An
example of a representative truck shows how the effective value of
the dynamic loading, as a standard for the collective load,
increases with increasing unevenness of the roadway. The effect on
service-life is much stronger, however, due to the exponential
relationship between load and service-life.
Service-life can be optimized with respect to shock-absorption;
too weak of damping increases axle-loading and too strong of
damping produces a strong, detrimental coupling of the masses.
Special service-life functions and nomograms are shown to be
effective for quick estimations of dimensioning and the resulting
vehicle characteristics. A compilation of such materials, which are
based on normalized parameters, can often circumvent the need for
rigorous development of computational methods.