Customized ROPS Application for Configurable Design at Concept Level

Tractor roll over is the most common farm-related cause of fatalities nowadays. ROPS (Roll-Overprotective Structures) are needed to prevent serious injury and death. It creates a protective zone around the operator when a rollover occurs. In India the ROPS is getting mandatory across all HP ranges except narrow track. In the present study states the customized ROPS application for configurable design such as Automated safety zone for all homologation standards, ROPS A0-D excel calculator for selection of material at concept stage and bolt calculator for selection of size. For the above applications below aspects need to consider such as Tractor weight, Rear housing mounting, Operator seat index position (SIP), Seat reference points (SRP) and all ROPS homologation standards. This ROPS application is to reduce the timeline, manual error and ensure the reliability of the modular optimal design for various platforms and variants. Nowadays it is important to perform configurable design at the concept design phase across variants/platform wise including all individual parts (both assembly & child part) so that we can optimize the varieties of material and thickness used, which will reduce the development & validation cost and shorten the time-to-market in later stages. Stochastic design optimization is then performed to reduce the weight of ROPS and ensure the robustness with reliability of the modular optimal design also in this paper. A ROPS design application is an example to demonstrate the proposed methodology by using NX10 - Automation, MathApps for bolt Calculator and ROPS A0-D excel calculator for determine the energy absorption capacity of the ROPS. Application results provide us the review and feedback on the safety and rigidity of the optimized ROPS for different platforms.