Soil Excavation Improvement from Bulldozer Blade Oscillation

Tests and analyses are presented on bulldozer blade oscillation configurations for improving dozing productivity. The purpose of oscillation is to decrease the ratio of tractive force to blade force, since dozing costs are so strongly dependent upon tractive force. The oscillating blade mass, frequency, amplitude, and direction of motion for optimum performance are determined using an approximate theoretical analysis. The theoretical results are compared with experimental results obtained from the literature. Reasonable agreement is obtained. Oscillating blade configurations are presented which should realize double the present dozer performance. In addition, those configurations provide complete isolation of the dozer from the inertial forces of the oscillation system. Prior to obtaining the analysis, full scale configurations for a U.S. Army D5 dozer were designed, built, and tested. The tests showed around 20% and 30% improvement with the two configurations.