Multibody study of tracked vehicles' dynamics and track chain modeling.

This thesis has two main objectives. The first one is the study of the tracked vehicle’s upper portion of chain under static conditions, by using Adams Tracked Vehicle (ATV), a toolkit of the Adams Car multibody software. The results of the ATV simulation will serve as the benchmark, against which results obtained by modeling the chain using analytical tools will be compared. This analytical approach has the great advantage of providing satisfactory results, while needing few inputs and being very cost effective and easy to implement. The second goal is that of studying the dynamic behavior of the tracked vehicle. More specifically, the vertical dynamics of the default vehicle model will be studied by analyzing the frequency content of the road profile and the vehicle’s vertical acceleration. Certain parameters of the vehicle will then be modified and the simulation will be repeated, in order to understand the influence and importance of the said modification. In this way, a comprehensive study of the vertical dynamics can be realized and the contribution of each parameter evaluated.