Research On The Wheel Design Of Manned Lunar Rover Vehicle Based On Experiment Of Driving Performance

It is an inevitable trend of our country’s lunar exploration project task from unmanned to manned lunar exploration. As a patroller on the lunar surface, manned lunar rover vehicle is able to carry astronauts, th e sampling and scientific instruments for high load, large moving speed and long distance detection task. As one of the key components of manned lunar rover, the wheels contact with the surface of the moon directly and feedback the terrain information, pla y an important role in adapting the complex terrain environment of the lunar suface. So far, few carry out the related research in our country. Experiment is a very important means to design a wheel, which can verify the performance of the wheel and also can analysis the influence factors of the wheel, making the design of the wheel more targeted.In order to let the wheel of the manned lunar rover vehicle have good vibration absorption, riding comfort, comfortable riding performance, good driving performance, and the lunar rover moves through the trajectory as scheduled, This thesis studies the driving performance based on experiment from tractive performance and steering performance aspects, then the elastic metal wheel of the manned lunar rover vehicle is designed. The wheel can produce enough traction with good traction performance and avoid obstacles in time with good steering flexibility.Dimension parameters(diameter and width), wheel thorn parameters(the height and the number) and driving parameters(v ertical load and speed) have a great influence on the driving performance of the wheel. This thesis analyzes the impact of one parameter to the driving performance of the wheel through changing the single parameter. Increasing the structure parameters and the vertical load can both effectively improve the hauling ability, but the degree and the way of the influence are different, for the energy loss is less and the efficiency is higher when increasing the width compared with increasing the diameter; the whe el’s tractive performance increases when the wheel sting parameters rise while the vibration frequency and amplitude of the wheel is enlaged distinctly as well; it is concluded that the traction performance of the elastic wheel is much better than the rigi d one through comparison and analysis. The wheel steering performance reduced more significantly compared with other parameters when the width and the helight of the wheel thorn, however, the influence of various parameters on the steering performance is less than that on the traction performance when the wheel steers in one constant place.The driving performance of the elastic wheel is much better than the rigid wheel from the experiment research, therefore, this article designs a variety of proposals of elastic wheels, and choose the best design by comparison and analysis, and combined with the driving performance experiment, the structural parameters of the elastic metal wheel of the manned lunar rover vehicle is designed, which satisfies the requirement of the function and technical index of the manned lunar rover vehicle’s wheel. The mental elastic wheel’s structure design of the manned lunar rover vehicle is designed by using the Pro/E software, and carries out the finite element analysis of the designed wheel and its key components by using the ANSYS software, which show that the strength and stiffness of the designed wheel meet the design requirements, which provides an important and valuable reference for the wheel’s structure of the manned lunar rover vehicle.