Static analysis of tipping superstructure of single-axle tractor trialer

Abstract

Agriculture still belongs to the important parts of industry. Modern agriculture cannot do effectively and economically without state-of-art machines. They are usually the most often towed by a tractor and, in principle, they have the form of a trailer. A tipping trailer is still the most common type of trailers. It has very universal use. The big advantage of a tipping trailer is the possibility to unload it without another handling machine (cranes, diggers etc.). If a company wants to introduce a new product to the market to compete in tough competition, the product must fulfil quite strict criteria not only from the workshop processing and design point of view. It must mainly meet the requirements and criteria from the reliability, safety and long-term operation point of view. This article brings results of the research, which is intended to design a single-axle tipping tractor trailer. The trailer consists of two main parts, a frame and a superstructure. Both parts of the trailer must undergo strength analyses under determined loading conditions. While the results of strength analyses of the frame were already presented in the previous event, this work shows an overview of the strength analysis of the tipping superstructure of the trailer. The structure has been analysed under static loads and dynamical effects have been taken into account by means of the dynamic coefficient. The task has been performed by application of the finite element method. Three load cases have been chosen, namely, driving of the trailer on an even road, side tipping and back tipping. The strength analyses have shown, that for the first load case, the maximal stress value is of 255 MPa, for the second case it is of 206 MPa and for the third case it is of 225 MPa. The results have shown that the designed structure of the tipping superstructure is able to withstand the given loads and it can be used in practice.