STUDIES ON VIBRATION CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUBBER CRAWLER --- Dynamic characteristics of the fixed track rollers and movable track rollers ---

The Japanese type combine harvester has adopted rubber crawlers for the driving mechanism from first production . However, combine harvesters with movable track rollers in the rubber crawler system have been adopted recently for the purpose of stability at the time of climbing over the footpaths between rice fields, as the results of the machines becoming large. However, the dynamic characteristics of movable track rollers have not been clarified. For this reason, the design of movable track rollers depends on trial and errors. It is known that vibration characteristics of the vehicle with movable track rollers are different from the vibration characteristics of the vehicles with fixed track rollers even though the track roller arrangements are the same. Therefore, the theoretical analyses of movable track rollers must be hurried in order to formulate a reasonable track roller arrangement design. the authors have studied the vibration characteristics of the rubber crawler ve icle with fixed track rollers. in this study, the dynamic model of the vehicle with movable track roller sis compared with the dynamic model of the vehicle with fixed track rollers. Next, motions are simulated to analyze the movable track rollers by expanding the motion equation which were constructed for the dynamic model of the fixed track rollers.