Funds secure off-road vehicle dynamics facility

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 7, 2004

Cranfield University's Engineering Group has won over GBP 1.25 million of funding to build a new off-road vehicle dynamics facility on the University's Silsoe site.

Cranfield University's Engineering Group within the National Soil Resources Institute (NSRI) has won over GBP 1.25 million of funding to build a new off-road vehicle dynamics facility on the University's Silsoe site.

The investment complements recent investment for motorsport on the main Cranfield campus site.

The facility, which will be completed by early 2005, will be the only centre of its type in the UK to study the relationship between machines and the soil environments in controlled conditions.

The facility will be managed by Professor Dick Godwin and Dr James Brighton.

With an international reputation for its expertise, the new laboratory will continue the incremental development of the NSRI's Engineering group's soil dynamics facilities.

The first purpose-designed facility for the investigation of soil failure mechanisms was built in 1971 to support the requirements of a rapidly developing agricultural machinery market.

Today the facilities have been expanded to cover a wide range of diverse industries including automotive, motorsport, aviation, agricultural, construction, sports surface, defence and telecommunications, and encompass most situations where a machine has to interact with an off-road environment.

The new laboratory will be built to complement the existing research facilities, and will aid vehicle and component design.

The laboratory will have a range of innovative, purpose-designed research equipment for the study of machine and soil systems.

The major equipment includes two whole-vehicle controlled-moisture soil bins, the first in the UK.

One wide and shallow bin (5 x 0.75m) will be for the evaluation of whole vehicles and tillage trains, while a deep narrow bin (2.5 x 2.5m) will be for the evaluation and development of a large range of machine components from sea ploughs to aircraft tyres.

These two vast bins are 45m long, and the water level in each can be controlled to simulate a range of conditions - from the saturated sea-bed encountered in sub-sea cable laying, through to hard, compacted dirt roads and airstrips.

A sophisticated test apparatus has been designed to accurately control the torque or slip of a single test wheel in any environment, while a variable-plane four-wheel traction plate will simulate undulating ground surfaces and measure vertical tyre loads across a range of axle articulations.

As an example, combining the data from a range of test programs using this facility a designer can quantify and evaluate the performance of different tyre and suspension designs or the effectiveness of different traction-control techniques.

Simulating extreme off-road environments will help to evaluate any machine such as a WRC or Rally Raid vehicle that interacts with soil.

The lab will be designed to help companies build vehicles and equipment that will optimise their performance.

"Our long-term research aim is to be able to create a virtual simulation of all environments such that any vehicle configuration can be evaluated in a controlled manner.

This would improve the accuracy, repeatability and cost-effectiveness of tyre and vehicle dynamics research for off-road vehicles and equipment", states the laboratory's designer and Project Manager, Dr James Brighton.