Authors - Swapnil Zalte, Prasad Kulkarni, Abhijeet Aundhe, Shikha Gupta, Shubham Darade
Large off-highway vehicles, such as combine harvesters, corn heads, and hinged drapers, are complex machines comprised of multiple interacting subsystems. Consequently, capturing the load path through full vehicle finite element modeling poses significant challenges and can be computationally intensive during the design development process. We primarily employ two structural analysis approaches based on the availability of load inputs:
• Full Frame Finite Element Model Setup
• Subsystem Finite Element Model Setup
Just like virtual verification, physical verification can also be performed at both the full vehicle and subsystem levels. The most critical input for both physical and virtual structural verification is load data. Traditionally, we acquire structural loads induced by ground excitations using wheel force transducers. For subsystem finite element models, interface loads are essential, which often necessitate custom load transducers during data collection. However, instrumenting every interface of the machine for load measurement is neither practical nor cost-effective.
To overcome this challenge, we propose a novel approach called the Virtual Load Sensor methodology. This technique extracts subsystem interface loads from the full vehicle finite element model, enabling subsystem-level structural analysis and fatigue verification, leading to faster and more concurrent design development. Additionally, these loads can be utilized to drive physical rig tests for subsystems, thereby avoiding the need for costly full vehicle rig tests. In this paper, we present an innovative and standardized Virtual Load Sensor methodology, detailing how this method facilitates the extraction of subsystem interface load time histories through superposition from the virtual finite element model. The methodology has been proved by demonstrating load and strain time history correlation.