Date of Award

2008

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering

Keywords

Applied sciences

Supervisor

William Altenhof

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

Over the past few decades, a significant number of incidents and fatalities have been associated with mining vehicle wheels. Correspondingly, a literature review was completed dealing with various topics associated with the mining wheels with specific attention to the incidents arising as a result of servicing multi-piece wheels. A detailed analysis of the obtained data indicated that three piece mining vehicle wheels were found to be most commonly involved in such incidents.

To assess the mechanical performance of three piece mining wheels, experimental testing was completed on such a wheel. Additionally, a numerical model of the wheel assembly used in the experimental testing was developed and simulated under similar loading conditions as in the experimental work. Predictions of the finite element model were in good agreement to the experimental findings with percentage errors typically in the range of 10% to 20%.

Numerical simulation of the SAE J1992 wheel cornering fatigue testing condition was completed on the numerical model of the wheel. The predictions from simulation were used to assess fatigue factors of safety utilizing the modified Goodman theory (von Mises and Sines approaches), simplified damage mechanics and critical plane approaches considering multi-axial loading. This predicts an infinite life for the wheel, whereas in practical applications, it is observed that the wheels do not usually have an infinite life as predicted. This contradiction in the numerical prediction is attributed to the wear and degradation of the mining wheel as a result of environmental effects and localized damage imparted onto a mining wheel during operation.

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