Analysis of Structural Design of Tracked Road Trains for Off-Road Container Transportation

Abstract

The article substantiates the relevance of comprehensive comparison of various versions of vehicles for off-road container transportation. Following the need to identify a specific engineering solution for development of a tracked road train, it is proposed to use the analytic hierarchy process designed to solve problems associated with determining the priorities of the multicriteria hierarchical structure of the goal, as well as in the presence of heterogeneous criteria or dimensional and dimensionless indicators. The comprehensive comparison of vehicles for off-road container transportation is based on the hierarchy of the mobility features, which is considered decisive for the choice of the priority variant of the structural design. The objective of the work is to substantiate the choice of a priority engineering solution for structural design of tracked road trains for off-road container transportation based on a scientifically grounded hierarchy of the mobility features. To attain the objective, a consistent solution of the following tasks is suggested as follows: development of requirements for vehicles and for a hierarchy of operational properties; analysis of existing structural design and layout solutions and justification of the choice of alternative solutions (specific designs of tracked road trains); conduct of a hierarchical synthesis of criteria based on the results of expert assessment; identification of the preliminary priority of alternative solutions; obtaining indicators of operational properties by methods of simulation mathematical modelling and/or full-scale mathematical modelling; choice of the priority engineering solution. The article discusses the feasibility of using tracked road trains both for transportation of a single 45-foot container and for simultaneous transportation of two 20-foot containers with a total mass of 61 tonnes. The analysis of the existing versions of structural design of tracked road trains has shown that only a vehicle of SVG-701 «Yamal» series, developed in the 1980s and which is not currently manufactured, can provide such a payload capacity. Existing modern articulated tracked vehicles cannot provide transportation of such goods. Hence, the relevance of the task of determining the priority engineering solution referring to structural design and layout of tracked road trains at the present stage of development of technology. Tracked single-hinged articulated semi-trailer road train and a doublehinged tracked road train are proposed as variants of structural design and layout versions of tracked road trains for off-road container transportation. Based on the analytic hierarchy process, opinions of experts and the hierarchy of operational properties, it was established that the engineering solution referring to double-hinged tracked road train should be prioritised. However, due to the small difference between the values of indicators used to select the options, it is necessary to conduct further studies to determine the values of the indicators of operational properties and to re-compare the options considering the results obtained.