The Estimation of Fracture Toughness of Torsion Shafts of a Tracked Vehicle under Operational Loads

Nowadays, the hull suspension systems that use torsion shafts as elastic suspension elements are fitted to the majority of modern tracked vehicles. The main type of failure in such systems is the fracture of the torsion shafts due to the formation of fatigue cracks, which leads to failure of the suspension assemblies. This work presents an analysis of fracture toughness of torsion shafts of a standard tracked chassis used to develop a family of multi-purpose transport vehicles GT-TM, GT-TMS, etc. The analysis is carried out under an operating load level for a crack located on the cylindrical part of the torsion shaft, the plane of which is at an angle to the torsion shaft axis and coincides with the position of the main areas of the stress state. The calculation of fracture toughness is based on Irwin fracture criterion. The calculations of the maximum stress intensity factor along the crack front are performed using the finite element method in the ANSYS software package. The results of the analysis of fracture toughness are presented in the form of dependences of the critical depth of the crack on the ratio of the fracture half-length to its depth. The data obtained can be used to determine the residual life of torsion shafts of the tracked vehicles based on the chassis under consideration.

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