Identifying target properties for the design of meta-material tank track pads.

摘要

This work presents a methodology to design an alternate meta- material that can provide some of the desired properties of tank track pads while eliminating or reducing the hysteresis losses of elastomer. To determine the requirements for linear elastic meta-materials, dynamic analyses of a rollover event are conducted on a simplified but representative finite element model of a backer pad. From these analyses, the complex dependence of the strain history on different strain components is elucidated. Due to the nonlinearity of elastomers, tangent stiffness matrices are required to update the stress states at different strain increments. The elasticity tensors (tangent operators) determined at a set of strain levels, are used as prescribed constitutive parameters to tailor the meta-material unit-cell topology. The optimal material properties according to which the track pad is designed with linear elastic meta-material are identified. A topology optimization study to target these material properties is ongoing.