Structural Analysis of a Multi-axle Steering Linkage for an 8 × 8 Special Purpose Vehicle

© 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.Considered as a safety sub-system, steering linkages should work under variable loads that arise in any extreme conditions during operation of the vehicle. Therefore, they should resist failure during service conditions, which require sufficient mechanical strength against different stress values. During the mechanical design stages of a steering linkage, taking the critical loading into account for a singular steering wheel position may not represent the most challenging case. Therefore, it should be applied for the full turning ranges of the steer axle wheels in order to obtain the critical steering wheel angle that forces the elements and joints the most. In this study, the variation of joint forces in the steering mechanism of an 8x8 ARFF vehicle was investigated by using FE (finite element) analysis. Stress distributions and bearing loads on the critical structural elements were established within the full turning range of the system. Firstly, the conformity of the results obtained from FE model was validated by means of a kinetic analysis that was carried out in MATLAB® environment by using a sub-linkage of the steering mechanism. Subsequently, a detailed FE model of the multi-axle steering linkage was created in order to determine the maximal joint forces and stress variation on the connection elements in full turning ranges of the steer axle wheels. Finally, the effect of steering booster was revealed on joint forces, as well as the stress behavior of critical structural components of the mechanism