Modelagem tridimensional não linear de veículos articulados pesados do tipo cavalo mecânico - carreta

Abstract

This research work is about the modelling o f articulated vehicles such as a truck-trailer system. The objective was to obtain a very complete model where all most relevant aspects o f the problem are taken into account: tridimensional move-ments, chassis flexibility, geometrical and parametric non-linearities. Chassis flex-ibility was included using the Assumed Modes Technique, where the admissible displacement functions corresponding to the chassis mode shapes are obtained through the Finite Element Method. The most sophisticated case studied in this thesis is the one with 51 degrees-of-freedom. This research was conducted in co-operation with Mercedes-Benz o f Brazil S.A., and for this reason all the numerical data are those used in practical design situations by Mercedes-Benz. The dynami-cal equations o f motion were obtained using Lagrange's equation and the limita-tion o f this method was surmounted by symbolic computation techniques. For this purpose the program MATHEMATICA was used to obtain all different portions of Lagrange's equation.