Experimental and numerical Analysis of the Body of a Refuse Collecting Vehicle

Object of the present work is the body of a vehicle for the refuse collection. The main part of the body and the hatchback door have been studied, both experimentally, by means of strain gauges measurements and numerically, by means of finite element models. The aim of the study was to determine the pressure profile generated by refuse of different kind on the body walls during the typical operating conditions of the vehicle and to analyse the correspondent stress and strain distribution. The strain gauges measurements were carried out in different days on the vehicle operating ‘in the field’, during the collection of solid urban refuse, paper and plastics. Eighty grids were applied to the vehicle body for this aim and the measurements were taken during the charging of the refuse from the boxes and during the subsequent tamping and discharging phases. A numerical model of the body was also developed, and an unit pressure was applied on different zones of it, calculating the correspondent strains in the strain gauges locations and determining in this way the influence coefficients. The pressure distribution was then evaluated by minimizing the differences between the so calculated strains and those experimentally measured: it shows different profiles, depending on the refuse type. Finally, the global stress and strain state of the body was numerically determined applying the pressure profiles found as above: the highest stresses were found in the back-lower part of the body and in particular in the hatchback door.