Development of a Multibody Dynamics Simulation Tool for Tracked Vehicles: Part I, Efficient Contact and Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling

In this paper, the nonlinear dynamic modeling methods for the virtual design of tracked vehicle are investigated by using multibody dynamic simulation techniques. The results include high oscillatory signals resulting from the impulsive contact forces and the use of stiff compliant elements to represent the joints between the track links. Each track link is modeled as a body which has six degrees of freedom, and two compliant bushing elements is used to connect track links. The efficient contact search kinematics and algorithms in the context of the compliance contact model are developed to detect the interactions between track links, rollers, sprockets, and ground for the sake of speedy and robust solutions. In order to validate the developed nonlinear multibody dynamic model against the experimental measurements, several empirical techniques are suggested and applied to the physical proving ground tests of the high mobility tracked vehicle. In this empirical validations, positions, velocities, accelerations and forces of the chassis and the track sub-systems are correlated accordingly.