Research of tire-soil interaction based on FEM-DEM for small wheeled mobile platform in forest

Due to forest soil environment being short of structured terrain, research of tire-soil interaction is critical to enhance the performance for small wheeled mobile platform in forest. A novel model coupled finite element method (FEM) and discrete element method (DEM), which can be used to investigate the interaction behavior between the small wheeled mobile platform tire and forest soil, was proposed in this paper. In particular, the tire model based on rubber parameters that were obtained by uniaxial tensile tests is established in ABAQUS. The mechanical parameters of the soil in forest were obtained by the standard of geotechnical test and the triaxial compression test. The soil model was established in PFC3D. Significantly, the novel tire-soil interaction model based on the coupling ABAQUS and PFC3D was proposed accurately. The drawbar pull, the sinkage and the soil vertical stress were obtained through the proposed tire-soil interaction model. Meanwhile, soil-bin tests for tire-soil interaction were established. The drawbar pull, the sinkage and the soil vertical stress were obtained in soil-bin tests, which were consistent with the results from the proposed tire-soil interaction model. The results validated the effectiveness of the coupling method and the accuracy of the proposed tire-soil interaction model. Moreover, the flow state of soil particles was described by the proposed tire-soil interaction model, which analyzed the forces evolution in the area where the tire was in contact with the soil.