Vehicle Duty cycle and Gear Programs

[BandH]

I hope someone can help me obtain information on the following. I work for a company that designs and manufactures on/off road vehicles e.g. fire tenders, 8x8 vehicles etc.

We normally estimate our own duty cycles for vehicles, and this in turn is used to size gears, bearings shafts etc. The problem is we feel we are oversizing our driveline, thus making it heavy etc.

My question is, does anybody know where information on duty cycles could be obtained? For example, would there be information available on RV's?

Also can anyone recommend software for analysing gears etc? Has anyone any experience of ADAMS/Driveline or similar software?

Any help at all will be great.

Thanks, Bandh

 

[iaguy]

You get your duty cycles by measuring your product in the field. You instrument the product, or inspect the wear on used product / prototypes. You could guess that other products have the same duty cycle as your product - but if you don't compare the product results how do you know???

L

 

[diamondjim]

I hope you are using varying load cases
and duty cycles corresponding to those
loads. You are the best source of knowing
the duty cycles. What is you failure rate?
i.e. are you rating per 90 percent accuracy
from statistical data.? You establish the
duty cycles. If you do not reduce the weight
and cost someone else will.

 

[diamondjim]

What kind of factor are using for the
material factor? Is your steel clean
and vacuum degassed? Research has shown
this type of treatment increases the duty
cycles up to 5 times the normal. There
are normally so many factors used to
calculate duty cycles, two engineers would
independently get different results.
Because the load factor is a cubic function,
any error in your estimated load results
in a large error in the output. The
static factor is generally only a squared
function, so static normally is less of a
problem. You cannot beat testing your own
equipment for more accurate results.