Heavy Tracked Vehicles Preliminary Design for Mobility

Modern military operations prove that increased terrain mobility is critical for heavy tracked vehicles’ (HTVs) survivability and lethality. HTV major system packaging as a component of preliminary design with many physical constraints and assumptions poses great challenges for mobility. This paper develops an approach and a method that accounts for such constraints/assumptions and optimizes the packaging of the HTV system assembly, including vehicle armor, armament and munition, powertrain, and fuel tanks. The optimization purpose is to accommodate the center of gravity for improving ground pressure distribution and then reducing the sinkage. This work is based on a literature review and combines numerous techniques rooted in Western literature and Eastern Soviet- and post-Soviet-era literature. The optimization process is developed using a genetic algorithm. The Mean Relative Design (MRD) parameter is proposed to study the average system rearrangement (i.e., re-packing) that is necessary to achieve an optimized design for an HTV, quantifying how well it is designed relative to its potential. Two HTVs with similar physical characteristics but different system assemblies are examined by using the MRD parameter and then optimized for lowering sinkage. The proposed method provides feasible results for packaging vehicle main systems. The optimization outcomes can be implemented during the initial phase of preliminary design and thus will facilitate the next phase of the HTV preliminary design for vehicle mobility performance. For the latter-mentioned purpose, future research will extend the proposed method to the optimization of vehicle mobility performance.