MULTI-WHEELED COMBAT VEHICLE MODELING ON RIGID AND SOFT TERRAIN

Multi-wheeled off-road vehicles performance depends not only on the total engine power but also on its distribution among the drive axles/wheels. In this paper, a combat vehicle model was developed to examine dynamic performance on rigid and soft terrain. The vehicle dynamics is validated on rigid road against published measured data. Also non-linear tire look-up tables for rigid and soft terrain were constructed based on developed three-dimensional non-linear Finite Element Analysis off-road tire using PAM-CRASH. The measured and predicted results are compared on the basis of vehicle steering, yaw rates and accelerations using published US Army validation criteria.

The validated combat vehicle model then used to study vehicle lane-change maneuverability on rigid and soft terrain at different speeds and powertrain configurations. This comparison showed the importance of having active torque distribution system on soft terrain especially at high speeds.