Design Evaluation of Chassis Mounted Platform for Off-Road Wheeled Heavy Vehicles

Chassis mounted platform is an intermediate component between vehicle chassis and shelter,and acts as a levelled base for shelters. Platform transfers and sustains unevenness in load arising from the road or soil irregularities during vehicle travel in rough terrains. Present work deals with development, evaluation and improvement of one such platform. In this work, the platform under consideration is designed to accommodate two shelters, each being secured to the platform using standard twist locking arrangements. Securing locations are dependent on the size and weight of the commodity to be placed inside the shelter. Major design modifications of the platform include nature and pattern of load, flange orientations of channel sections, span between webs of adjacent channels, axle load distribution and vehicle geometry constraints as ground clearance and departure angle. Hand calculations, computer aided design and finite element analysis are carried to evaluate the stress and deflection for different platform configurations. Road profiles for platform analysis include rough road and cross-country terrains. Experimental strain measurement at critical locations on the platform is carried out to evaluate the performance of the platform under specified load-speed conditions. Mathematical relation between experimental stress values and strain gauge locations on the platform is developed for different load magnitudes and loading patterns.