Analyses of energy dissipation of run-off-road wheeled vehicles utilizing controlled soil bin facility environment

Management of nonrenewable energy sources is a worldwide concern particularly some of which refer to the consumption of fossil fuels. There is a great deal of energy loss in terramechanics at soil-wheel interface while the role of rolling resistance as a pronounced factor, was aimed to be assessed in this study under the effect of tire inflation pressure, forward velocity and wheel load in controlled condition of a well-equipped soil bin facility utilizing a single wheel-tester for provision of accuracy. Inflation pressure, velocity and wheel load varied at three, three and five different levels, respectively, forming forty-five treatments each of which with three replicates. The experimental results were analyzed using ANOVA (analysis of variance) and development of multiple regression analysis based model using the stepwise selection technique. Our results showed that increase of velocity led into increment of energy loss where increase of wheel load had paramount effect on the increase of the target parameter. The obtained results indicated that a decrease of inflation pressure from 350 kPa to 250 kPa decreased energy loss, however, further decreasing from 250 to 150 to an underinflated pressure, resulted in significant increment of energy loss.