Simulation-based examination of the tracking stability of tugger trains

Abstract

For in-house transportation especially for material supply in production lines tugger trains are increasingly used. An important attribute of these trains with up to five trailers is the tracking capability. For a good manoeuvrability and low space requirements the directional stability is very important. In this paper, this stability is exemplarily analysed for two tugger trains available on the market. Therefore a quality factor is defined, that measures quantitatively the difference to the directional stability. With a developed analytical model this factor is calculated for a circular driving under static conditions. Afterwards a multi-body simulation is done, that allows a deeper physical modelling and the study of complex manoeuvres. A comparison of the simulation and the analytic results shows the influence of other parameters to the directional stability besides the steering kinematic.