Joint Tactical Electric Vehicle Differential Development

摘要

As part of Rod Millen Special Vehicle's contract number MDA972-95-1-0011 (ARPARA94-24 Program), effective April 1,1996, under the aegis of CALSTART's Propulsion System Development Project for Advanced Hybrid Reconnaissance Vehicles effort, the Joint Tactical Electric Vehicle (JTEV) differentials were to be evaluated with the intent of improving the overall performance level of the vehicle. JTEV's current drive system incorporates a Weismann locker differential system to allow the rotational rate of the wheels to vary from left to right across the vehicle, and allows the wheel with the most traction to receive the full driving torque available. This type of drive was selected for maximum mobility in an off-the-shelf system. This system has the advantage of always providing drive to the ground, but under very poor or rapidly changing traction conditions, it has the potential to overload the driving wheel and break traction, thus shifting all drive to the opposite wheel. This could cause instability due to the vehicle's tractive effort center rapidly alternating from left to right. In order to further demonstrate the tactical utility of hybrid electric vehicle technology, it was deemed desirable to attempt to improve the differential system with the intent of achieving a system capable of producing the absolute maximum tractive effort in all possible conditions, without adversely affecting JTEV's handling characteristics.