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Characterizing Wheel-Soil Interaction Loads Using Meshfree Finite Element Methods: A Sensitivity Analysis for Design Trade StudiesA wheel experiencing sinkage and slippage events poses a high risk to planetary rover missions as evidenced by the mobility challenges endured by the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project. Current wheel design practice utilizes loads derived from a series of events in the life cycle of the rover which do not include (1) failure metrics related to wheel sinkage and slippage and (2) performance trade-offs based on grouser placement/orientation. Wheel designs are rigorously tested experimentally through a variety of drive scenarios and simulated soil environments; however, a robust simulation capability is still in development due to myriad of complex interaction phenomena that contribute to wheel sinkage and slippage conditions such as soil composition, large deformation soil behavior, wheel geometry, nonlinear contact forces, terrain irregularity, etc. For the purposes of modeling wheel sinkage and slippage at an engineering scale, meshfree nite element approaches enable simulations that capture su cient detail of wheel-soil interaction while remaining computationally feasible. This study implements the JPL wheel-soil benchmark problem in the commercial code environment utilizing the large deformation modeling capability of Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) meshfree methods. The nominal, benchmark wheel-soil interaction model that produces numerically stable and physically realistic results is presented and simulations are shown for both wheel traverse and wheel sinkage cases. A sensitivity analysis developing the capability and framework for future ight applications is conducted to illustrate the importance of perturbations to critical material properties and parameters. Implementation of the proposed soil-wheel interaction simulation capability and associated sensitivity framework has the potential to reduce experimentation cost and improve the early stage wheel design proce
Document ID
20150007432
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Contreras, Michael T.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Trease, Brian P.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Bojanowski, Cezary
(Argonne National Lab. IL, United States)
Kulakx, Ronald F.
(RFK Engineering Mechanics Consultants Naperville, IL, United States)
Date Acquired
May 6, 2015
Publication Date
April 8, 2013
Subject Category
Numerical Analysis
Computer Programming And Software
Spacecraft Design, Testing And Performance
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference
Location: Boston, MA
Country: United States
Start Date: April 8, 2013
End Date: April 11, 2013
Sponsors: American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Helicopter Society International, American Society for Composites, American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
terramechanics
analysis
mobility
Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)

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