Energy analysis of a hybrid forwarder

Abstract: This report is the result of Master of Science thesis project developed for KTH Royal Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk) for the Forestry Master Thesis School 2016. In the past few years, Adams MBD models have been created to verify the better comfortability of six-wheeled pendulum-arm-suspension compared to bogie-suspended forwarder. Based on the current achievements, this thesis would focus on discovering the energy consumption states of both types of forwarder. A study on the energy usage of a pendulum arm suspension forwarder was preformed based on existing design parameters and test data gathered by Skogforsk, providing insight about the performance of XT28 when operating on a test track. Hydraulic and mechanical models of the forwarder were built using Adams and Simulink/Matlab. These models were used for the simulation of the working process and calculation of the energy consumption. The result of this research project shows that active pendulum arm suspension forwarder saves approximately 28% of energy consumption compared to passive suspension. It is also shown that a speed increase from 0.84m/s to 1m/s increases the energy consumptio with approximately 10%.