Mechanical Analyses of Multi-Piece Mining Vehicle Wheels to Enhance Safety
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University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Electronic Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 2014 Mechanical Analyses of Multi-piece Mining Vehicle Wheels to Enhance Safety Zhanbiao Li University of Windsor Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd Recommended Citation Li, Zhanbiao, "Mechanical Analyses of Multi-piece Mining Vehicle Wheels to Enhance Safety" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5197. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/5197 This online database contains the full-text of PhD dissertations and Masters’ theses of University of Windsor students from 1954 forward. These documents are made available for personal study and research purposes only, in accordance with the Canadian Copyright Act and the Creative Commons license—CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works). 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Mechanical Analyses of Multi-piece Mining Vehicle Wheels to Enhance Safety By Zhanbiao Li A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering Department in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2014 © 2014 Zhanbiao Li Mechanical Analyses of Multi-piece Mining Vehicle Wheels to Enhance Safety By Zhanbiao Li APPROVED BY: __________________________________________________ Dr. R. Hall, External Examiner University of British Columbia __________________________________________________ Dr. S. Das Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering __________________________________________________ Dr. N. Zamani Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering __________________________________________________ Dr. D. Green Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering __________________________________________________ Dr. W. Altenhof, Advisor Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering September 4, 2014 DECLARATION OF PREVIOUS PUBLICATION This dissertation includes four (4) original papers that have been previously published in peer reviewed journals, as follows: Dissertation Publication title/full citation Publication status* Chapter Tonkovich A., Li Z., DiCecco S., Altenhof W., Banting R., and Hu H. (2012) “Experimental Observations of tire Deformation Characteristics on Chapter 4 Published Heavy Mining Vehicles under static and Quasi- Static Loading”. Journal of Terramechanics, Vol. 49, No. 3-4, pp. 215-231. Li Z., Tonkovich A., DiCecco S., Altenhof W., Banting R., and Hu H. (2013) “Development and Chapter 5 and validation of a FE model of a mining vehicle tire”. Published Chapter 6 International Journal of Vehicle Design, Vol.65, No.2/3, pp.176 – 201. Li Z., DiCecco S., Tonkovich A., Altenhof W., Banting R., and Hu H. (2013) “A threaded- Chapter 8 and connection locking mechanism integrated into a Published Chapter 9 multi-piece mining wheel for enhanced structural performance and safety”. Journal of Terramechanics, Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 245-264. Li Z., DiCecco S., Altenhof W., Thomas M., Banting R., and Hu H. (2014) “Stress and Fatigue Chapter 8 and Life Analyses of a Five-piece Rim and the Proposed Published Chapter 9 Optimization with a Two-piece Rim”. Journal of Terramechanics, Vol. 52, pp. 31-45. I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to include the above published material(s) in my dissertation. I certify that the above material describes work completed during my registration as graduate student at the University of Windsor. I declare that, to the best of my knowledge, my dissertation does not infringe upon anyone’s copyright nor violate any proprietary rights and that any ideas, techniques, quotations, or any other material from the work of other people included in my dissertation, published or otherwise, are fully acknowledged in accordance with the standard referencing practices. iii Furthermore, to the extent that I have included copyrighted material that surpasses the bounds of fair dealing within the meaning of the Canada Copyright Act, I certify that I have obtained a written permission from the copyright owner(s) to include such material(s) in my dissertation. I declare that this is a true copy of my dissertation, including any final revisions, as approved by my dissertation committee and the Graduate Studies office, and that this dissertation has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution. iv CLAIMS TO ORIGINALITY Aspects of this work constitute, in the author’s opinion, new and distinct contributions to the technical knowledge pertaining to enhancing the safety of multi-piece wheels. These include: (i) Analyses of fatality reports associated with multi-piece wheel failures. Through many fatality incident analyses, the root cause for the multi-piece wheel failures was identified to associate with the lock ring. This finding defined the focuses of this research and gave a clear direction for innovative designs. In the public domain, no literature was found to conduct systemic analysis of fatality incidents to identity the cause of multi-piece wheel failures, in the off-the-road (OTR) wheel design’s point of view. (ii) Experimental testing of OTR tire/wheel assemblies. In-field tire deflection tests were conducted on heavy-duty underground mining vehicles. Linear relationships were found between the vertical wheel displacement and the maximum lateral tire deflection for linear static and quasi-static loading conditions. No literature was found in public domain to conduct in-field OTR tire deflection tests. The testing methods and findings are unique in this area. The in-field OTR tire testing led to the successful tire modeling and inclusion in the OTR tire/wheel assembly models, which were used for numerical predications of wheel performances and design improvements. (iii) Development of the finite element (FE) model of a five-piece OTR tire/wheel assemblies. A robust and high fidelity FE model of the assembly was developed using simplified yet efficient modeling approaches and validated using in-field experimental test data. (iv) Investigation of geometry and material degradation effect on fatigue life of a five-piece wheel. This research numerically investigated the effects of geometry degradation (material wear out in critical regions) and material property degradation (corrosion on wheels) on multi-piece wheel performances and fatigue lives. (v) BS (bead seat) band pull-out numerical testing method. This numerical testing is unique in determining the capability of the multi-piece wheel locking mechanism in holding the tire and wheel components in proper engaging positions under severe loading conditions. v (vi) The threaded-connection mechanism design to replace the lock ring mechanism in the conventional five-piece wheel. This threaded-connection four-piece design reduced the possibility of failure due to the mismatched wheel components. The BS band pull- out simulation revealed that the threaded-connection design was twice as strong as the conventional five-piece design in holding wheel components and the tire together. The progressive failure mode of the threaded-connection had a much safer failure mode, compared to the instantaneous failure mode of the conventional five-piece lock ring design. The fatigue lives on the critical regions of the rim base were over two orders of magnitude higher than the fatigue lives of the rim base of the conventional five-piece wheel. (vii) The innovative two-piece wheel design. The two-piece wheel design completely removed the possibility of wheel failure due to mismatched wheel components that existed in other multi-piece wheels with a lock ring mechanism. It also reduced the numbers of pieces of the wheel. The fatigue lives at critical regions were increased by over two orders of magnitude, compared to the conventional five-piece wheel. vi ABSTRACT In this research, experimental and numerical methods were used to analyse the performance of multi-piece wheel structures and two proposed innovative designs to enhance safety were validated by computer simulations. Fatality report analyses revealed that the majority (90%) of the multi-piece wheel failures were caused by use of lock rings. Experimental tire and rim base tests were conducted to understand the deflection characteristics of off-the-road tires and to validate the finite element model of a five-piece wheel/tire (sized 29.5-29) assembly. A linear relationship was found between the vertical displacement of the wheel and the maximum lateral deflection of the tire for both static and quasi-static loading tests. A robust tire model was validated with an average accumulative error of 9.7% and an average validation metric of 0.96 for tire deflections, compared to the experimental tests. The rim base model was validated with an average error of 7.6% and an average validation metric of 0.93 for wheel deformations, and an average accumulative error of 12.7% and an average validation metric of 0.88 for strains, compared to experimental