Multi-objective optimization and performance evaluation of active, semi-active and passive suspensions for forestry machines

Abstract: The development of forestry machines is currently heading towards new solutions that reduce their impact on the environment and in particular on the soft forest soil in which the machines operate. The terrain conditions that forestry machines encounter in their regular duties can be very rough, and if the vehicle-ground interaction is not properly controlled cumulative damage can progressively aggravate these conditions and potentially render a route or a zone impracticable, apart from causing a detrimental effect in the forest environment. In addition, new machine solutions must be considerably less damaging, both physically and mentally, to operators. There are certain imposed limits to the whole body vibrations to which industrial workers are exposed daily, which are very hard to fulfil in the context of wood harvesting operations with the current technological state of the machines. Chassis-suspended solutions in the market of forestry vehicles are practically inexistent. Multiple wheeled tracks and/or bogies are current solutions that improve dynamic performance and ground contact area of forestry vehicles, but they do not include suspension elements. Cab and seat suspensions are also used to reduce whole body vibrations, but they are only effective up to a certain degree, due to their relatively short stroke length and directional limitations. The implementation of chassis suspensions in forestry machines is therefore a very interesting open area of research in forestry technology. In this context the XT28, a forwarder prototype with active pendulum arm suspension, is currently being developed by Extractor AB in collaboration with Skogforsk; the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden. The present project focuses in analysis and comparison of the performance that active, semi-active and passive suspension systems with pendulum arm architecture would present, by studying their application in the XT28 machine. These systems have the potential to significantly improve forestry vehicle performance in terms of terrain friendliness and whole body vibrations over an unsuspended system. The task is carried out with the help of Multi-Body Dynamics simulation software along with other simulation and computational tools. Additionally, a general method to optimize and analyse forestry vehicle suspension performance is proposed and applied to the case of the XT28, which provides a fair and standardized way to compare the performance of the different suspensions. Keywords: Forestry machine, suspension, multi-objective optimization, forwarder, pendulum arm, active, semi-active, passive, XT28, Multibody Dynamics, soil-friendly, off-road.