• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.81-89
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• 2013

This paper considers the steering characteristics of a four-row tracked vehicle crawling on extremely cohesive soft soil, where each side is composed of two parallel tracks. The four-row tracked vehicle (FRTV) is assumed to be a rigid body with 6-DOF. A dynamic analysis program for the tracked vehicle is developed using the Newmark-${\beta}$ method based on an incremental-iterative scheme. A terra-mechanics model of an extremely cohesive soft soil is implemented in the form of the relationships of the normal pressure to the sinkage, the shear resistance to the shear displacement, and the dynamic sinkage to the shear displacement. In order to investigate the steering characteristics of the four-row tracked vehicle, a series of dynamic simulations is conducted with respect to the distance between the left and right tracks (pitch), steering ratios, driving velocity, reference track velocity, lengths of the tracks, and properties of the cohesive soft soil. Through these numerical simulations, the possibility of using a kinematic steering ratio is explored.