To acquire the fatigue characteristics of viscoelastic suspensions mounted in newly-developed construction vehicles, an experimental study of fatigue characteristics should be carried out on the vibration damping rubber suspension components. However, due to the lack of corresponding fatigue failure criteria for the damping rubber components, how to determine the parameters for the accelerated fatigue experiments becomes a new research subject. Based on the accelerated fatigue experiments on the viscoelastic suspensions, the parameters on fatigue failure characteristics such as the cycle index (ne), the slope (k) of S–N logarithm curve and the allowable temperature rise, and so on, were investigated. To develop a new viscoelastic suspension for the crawler bulldozer, three types of rubber made from different formulas for the viscoelastic suspensions were studied and their experimental loads were divided into 8 levels in terms of the practical working conditions of the bulldozer. The accelerated fatigue experiments of viscoelastic suspensions were performed and the obtained parameters were applied to the fatigue experiments for the suspensions of a newly-designed 386 kW crawler bulldozer. Under the industrial application over 4,000 hours, the results were shown to be consistent with the predicted experimental values.
Effect of Stress Rate on Fatigue Failure Characteristics of Shirahama Sandstone
