Mud n' Water - Research for Major Project

[trautmann]

Okay.  So, first thing first.  My name is Richard and I'm a student at Coventry University.  How very boring.

However, I've come here on a hunt for the most valuable of resources, information.  After looking through your forums, it seems that you're pretty damn well informed and could well help me out.

The short of it is this:  I'm on a Transport Design course and am starting a major project, of which the focal point is a collaboration with students in Colombia.  The Colombian students have proposed that we create an emergency assistance vehicle, to cope with all terrains.

My part in this research phase is to gather information about MUD AND WATER.  Oh yes, it all sound very delicious, does it not?  So, I'm here to see what sort of information I can gather about the modifications needed for driving through copious amounts of mud and water.  I'm not sure what questions to ask, so basically, I'd very appreciate your opinions and experiences of wading through water, and dealing with very thick mud.   

If at all possible, I'd like to know about how a vehicle is modified to deal with these on a day to day basis.  I know that water requires a snorkel of some kind....but that's about it for my knowledge  :?

As for thick mud...apart from it being damn annoying to clean off...?  Any suspension issues, heavy duty CV boots, protected damper stanchions...I'm grabbing at straws, really : /

So any info I can get would be pretty awesome.  There's a chance that a prototype of this vehicle will be built in Colombia to deal with natural disasters if it all works out....so, here's hoping!

So!  Cheers for reading this arduous post!

  ....wanted to use that one at least once...

[lee celtic]

I'll Kick off then shall I... :lol:

Looking at the rest of the world I'd say landrover 110 . mods limited to snorkle , and maybe a steering guard and diff guards. and 750/16 mud tyres.

the reason for the lack of extream mods is that all the parts would be standard and easy to source cheaply and quickly  :D

next..... :lol:

[Skibum346]

Not much more to add than what was said above. I would suggest however that whilst I understand the approach the cart is well and truly before the horse here.

There is umptyhundred different mods that could be done to have some effect on the ability of a vehicle to transit mud and water, each one will have a downside and indeed taken together could make the ve4hicle dangerous.

I feel that rather than research mods WE use for mud and water... research the locality where this vehicle will operate. This will provide you with an understanding of the typical situations it will experience and this understanding can be translated into a set of requirements that could be paired with requirements for the kind of emergency equipment it would need to carry and the whole drive an engineered solution.

the engineered solution could be an almost stock set up Defender as mentioned above... or it could be something larger, unimog, Zil, BV202 etc. It could even be a completely new vehicle engineered to suit.

Hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs, and I'm local to Cov so happy to meeet and discuss over a pint of something if you'd like.

Skibum

[JIMBOBLY]

you will also bennifit from wading plugs,they fit in the bottom of the timing cover,bell housing,if you are using a 110 tdi that is,they basically stop water getting into the timing casing and getting onto the timing belt,it could brake it if water and grit got in,and the other to stop water getting onto the clutch,and extented breather hoses for the axles,and gearbox and transfer box,they go up high,to stop water getting into these components,because a hot casing will create a vacum and draw water in,hope this helps,jim :D

[MudPlugger]

Wouldn't a wider track and fatter tyres be of a benefit to that sort of thing as the footprint of the tyres on the mud will help it keep up the momentum, enabling it to get better traction on the sticky stuff. There is also the added advantage where the wider lugs would help it to "bite" into the sides of a rut in the event of becoming stuck.

As for what would help it out the usual things really winch (added advantage that you can add one on back too), bigger more aggressive tyres for getting through the mud, usual recovery equipment such as waffles etc, plenty of underbody armour, bush wires so that your windscreen doesn't get harmed in the event of annoying branch smacking it, bull bar to protect the front or light guards all round at the very least, roof rack, how about beadlockers to stop the tyre coming off the rim?

All these are just a general pointer and most of them actually come from the shopping list of everything I want to put on my motor.

One vital thing I did forget though...Communications equipment CB Radio etc and probably a satellite phone.

[carracarra13]

would tracking of some sort be good as youn eliminate punctures and could make it fully amfibious

[trautmann]

What a response!

Cheers, guys, this is some really helpful stuff.  I'd not contemplated a lot of the ideas presented here, so thanks!

The project is still developing, we're presenting a very basic idea to our head tutor tomorrow, so everything posted here will go a long way  :D  I'll let you know how it turns out.

It seems that tyres would be a good topic of debate.  We're looking for mud-grabbing, high traction tyres, but at the same time, we're looking at the possibility of urban disasters, and driving over materials such as rubble and general debris.  A little outlandish, but we're trying to make the vehicle traverse stairs.  My experience of driving on stairs is accidentely going down some in a beetle, so I'm not sure what kind of compatibility issues there are there.  The beetle was fine, by the way  :oops:

Skibum, I very much appreciate your comments on this topic.  Like I said, the project is very much still in it's infancy, however, if it's cool with you, I'll talk with the group about the possibility of meeting to discuss when we start to develop ideas in the coming months?

Might stick some scans of ideas up on here, too, if its cool with everyone else.

Anyway, progress as it comes 

[Gordo]

Without knowing how familar with off-road vehicles and driving, it might be worth seeing if you can get a trip out, off road, in a Land Rover with the kind of modifications / equipment you're considering.

I'd offer, but a Freelander is a very different beast to a Defender so perhaps not ideal for a demo.

[Disco Matt]

Something to consider with very aggressive tyre patterns is the stress they put on the drivetrain. I recall reading that the Darien Gap expedition Range Rovers blew differentials on regular occasions due to having larger "bogger" type tyres. Generally the half shafts will go before the diffs and are easier to replace, but they can still be a swine to fix.

You can get heavy duty halfshafts but you end up chasing the stresses up the drivetrain, so the diff will be the weak spot (until you replace them, then it's the propshafts, then gearbox).

An automatic will do a lot to reduce this sort of problem as it tends to blunt the power delivery. Alternatively you need to train your drivers to use just enough power to get the desired effect and no more.

[lee celtic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wBkX3UeQio

These are the best and you can get them for between £6500 and £15000 depending on age and condition, they seat 16 , they are all terrain and they float 

[william127]

for the waterproofing have alook at the feb 09 issue of laand rover owner inernational, theres an artical on the marines landrovers :shock:

[Suvvey]

Trautman. Were you looking at designing and building a vehicle from the ground up or modifying an existing vehicle for the task?

[Skibum346]

Trautman... drop me a PM when you want to chat.

By the way... the video above is the BV202 I mentioned... or at least a version of it.

Skibum

[boss]

several factors to take into consideration - as said above the cost and the reliability of a vehicle that isnt too "extreme" almost ought weighs a vehicle built for anything.

tyres.
a few ways of looking at this. super fat or super skinny. the fatter tyres will sit on top of the mud could give you more traction as more tyre is in contact with the ground however if the mud is very sticky the wheels can just spin on the surface. the skinny ones can dig down and get to the harder stuff which could potentially get you out of trouble. but if there isnt anything harder under the mud you have just cut through then its a case of game over.
trewad pattern is pretty much the same story, you can have a super aggressive agri tyre that cleans its self well and digs down to hard stuff but again what happens when there is nothing to dig down too. you could have the best of both worlds by having a fat tyre with an aggressive tread pattern
another upside to the wide tyres is that they will spread the weigh of the vehicle alot more and can also help when you get into strange angles however make things too wide and it wont fit anywhere!

drive line.
if you fit wide agressive mud tyres (as stated) the stresses on the drive line are increased i have heard of people running rediculous rubber on standard axels with no problem but if your making a rescue vehicle then reliability must be righ up high on the list? locking the diffs would also be an advantage in mud,  if one wheel loses traction then all of the drive from the engine will be lost through that 1 wheel spinning.
portal boxes are a HUGE advantage in mud, they do not only increace the diff clearance on the axle but they allow you to get more precice gearing if needs be. most portal axels come with diff locks and strengthend shafts merc or volvo ones are the most popular but companys such as portal tek and D&G tuning are making new hybrid portals from scratch which alegedley have all the advantages of the merc or volvo axels with none of the disadvantages (such as weight or scarceness of parts)

water
baisic princables of water state you cannot compress a liquid if any water made it into your air intake and into the pistons then bye bye engine as it is essentially a big compressor. simple fix is to fit a snorkel but there are other things that need to be done such as breathers for gearbox, transfer box, axels, bell housing and pretty much anything with moving parts, not so much because they will explode but becasue oil and water make an interesting goo with a hidious consistancy that has a tendancy to damage things. if the engine has an ECU then that is something else that needs to be kept out of harms way.

winch
3 main types of winch; electric, hydraulic and PTO
electric winches are very fast easey to fix and easey to maintian and are reasonably cheap but water and electrickery do not mix, solinoids die water gets onto brake drums the brushes corrode can become very problimatic very quickley
hydraulic winches pull for ever, they cant burn out like an electric unit and they are usually lighter and more compact than a lecci one however they can be so slooooooow! not always a bad thing but not always a good thing. if your enginew stalls then you have no winch the hydro units need a pump to work which is normally triven off of the engine via a chain prop or belt or off of the transfer box. if the engine cuts out, stalls or just dies then you have no winch! the pump is not being pumped and the winch is getting no fluid.
PTO (power take -off) winches are mechanical winches which are powerd straigh from the engine they have as much poweer as your engine does they can be very fast or very slow depending on your righ foot, they can pull HUGE loads all day and they are pretty much failsafe. but again if you lose your engine then youve also lost your winch another thing which is quite worrying about them is if you get your wheel caught on something and do not notice it quick enough then thats it the winch will rip it off! no struggleing no straining just gone.

petrol vs. diesel
there is no right or wrong answer here some people sware by there v8s others stick to there TDIs, a diesel is waterproof (given that breathers and a snorkel have been fitted) they have no distributor or spark plugs to get wet and there  maxtorque comes in a little lower. a petrol typically has more power but as staited they dont like water. but there is a way to get around this and that is called megasqurt. this baisically replaces sparkplugs for coils and has an electric distributor and allegedley waterproofs the engine alows you to write your own engine maps improves power/torque improves MPG i dont know too much about this program as i normally stick to diesels but is defnatley something to look at.



that is a pretty comprehencive brake down of offroading through mud and water hope that has helped if you have any further questions you can pm me here or email me(adress is on my profile)

apolagies for any and all spelling errors/bad grammor but i cant sleep and i am ill :(





reguards
boss

[Boddle]

 One thing missed here seems to be axle and gearbox breather which are either connected into the snorkel or taken to the top of the vehicle, Having spent a lot of time in water my rear diff pinion bearing has pack up due to water getting into the rear diff via a breather pipe which strangely seemed to be fitted in the rear wheel arch right in direct line of the the rear wheel spray. I now work in JLR driveline design so they shouldn't get it wrong in the future.

 If you are in Coventry area you could bring your question along to the monthly meet held look under pub meets for the next (last Monday of the Month) I am sure there are a number of us who will bore you to tears with does and don'ts.

 Something to think about when designing for water is don't try and seal thing from it unless you have oil in it, water has an amazing ability to get place, a diving bell approach is probably the best Technique here, and avoid electronics where possible.

[tack43]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wBkX3UeQio

These are the best and you can get them for between £6500 and £15000 depending on age and condition, they seat 16 , they are all terrain and they float 

This is a BV206 I've used them in Norway. They are made by Volvo, early ones had a Ford V6 engine, later models were diesel. They are primarily used as over snow vehicles, amphibious for when the ice melts or breaks (they do need prep beforehand!). The US army uses them in all enviroments and while very capable off road they don't like mud and tend to throw tracks and break road wheels. On road use is also limited. Top speed 45 MPH (trust me you wouldn't want to go any faster) and again throwing tracks etc. If this could be sorted, maybe change the rubber tracks for something more robust, this could be an ideal base vehicle.

Rich

[trautmann]

Hi folks, once again, thanks for the epic replies!

To answer some questions about the project, we plan to design a machine from the ground up, but this doesn't ban us from making use of existing parts, such as the tracks and drivetrain that exist underneath the BV206's.  By the way, a fantastic machine that we'd almost totally forgotten about!

We had a good chat over the internet yesterday with the Colombians we're working with on this project, and with them, we proposed an idea for a modular design, where the cab and engine would be interchangable with different 'undersides', I guess you could say.  With what has been presented here, it also seems like trying to design a single machine for all uses wouldn't prove to be very effective.  It also seems that trying to create an 'environmentally friendly' vehicle just wouldn't be appropriate, especially when you're going places that perhaps don't even have electricity.

As for the amount of engineering that needs to go into the project, we've been told that we need to demonstrate understanding and appropriate applications, but we don't have to go into any great detail, usability is the key here.

I'm going to link this page to the rest of the group due to the fantastically detailed and helpful responses I've had over the past few days.

We're having a group meeting as I speak, so I might come back and present some of the ideas we generate.

Once again, thanks for the valuable information 

[clbarclay]

The BV206's I've delt with were only 50 Km/h top speed, though specs may well have changed over the years.

The front section consists of a steel tube which keeps water away from the engine and the desing is limited for modification. The rear section though is a very simple box section chassis (pictures below) with 4 mounts where the rear body bolts on, making them potentially much more versatile. The body provides the bouancy for the rear end though, without it they are no longer amphibious.

[Suvvey]

Are you actually planing on donating the finished item to an emergency/aid agency? Or is this to be a one off 'example' of what can be done? If the completed machine is to be put into longterm use then maybe you need to look at the availability of parts/service items to keep it running and availability of guys that can work on it. 
Specialised vehicles like the BV206 are undoubtably extremely good at the jobs they were designed for but I am guessing that sourcing parts would be a headache and your local back road columbian mechanic wouldn't have seen many before. A landrover based vehicle however would I imagine prove simpler on both counts.
Also they are already relatively 'modular' in design.

Ps that is my unbiased opinion as I don't actually own a landrover ;)

[carbore]

I suggest buying a few "tractor and machinery" and and plant mags, you see some differnt kit in there.

For example lots of tractors have dual wheels, so you can put anoter set of for floatation. This is possibly good in your situation as you done want to be too big all the time as you may have narrow tracks, but bolt on the duals for the muddy stuff (swamp) and you are away.

After all, when a 4x4 gets stuck what do you pull them out with, a tractor.

 

[JIMBOBLY]

One thing missed here seems to be axle and gearbox breather which are either connected into the snorkel or taken to the top of the vehicle, Having spent a lot of time in water my rear diff pinion bearing has pack up due to water getting into the rear diff via a breather pipe which strangely seemed to be fitted in the rear wheel arch right in direct line of the the rear wheel spray. I now work in JLR driveline design so they shouldn't get it wrong in the future.

 If you are in Coventry area you could bring your question along to the monthly meet held look under pub meets for the next (last Monday of the Month) I am sure there are a number of us who will bore you to tears with does and don'ts.

 Something to think about when designing for water is don't try and seal thing from it unless you have oil in it, water has an amazing ability to get place, a diving bell approach is probably the best Technique here, and avoid electronics where possible.

i did actually mention it mate if you look further up,cause ive had the same problem as you,didnt knacker the diff completely though

[trautmann]

Ah, you'll have to be forgiving, as you can probably appreciate, this being a design module, ideas will get dropped and picked up rapidly.

Suvvey, to answer your question, this will be a design that could possibly be made into a concept vehicle that will be an example of what could be done.  It'd be built in Colombia if there ever is a concept built (which would be awesome).

Anywho, back on track.  And on the topic of tracks, the group have decided to drop them because of the aforementioned track throwing issue raised by tack43, and the sourcing issue presented by Suvvey.  We've decided that we'd like to pursue the following ideas, due to their simple and innovative aspects:

http://www-robot.mes.titech.ac.jp/robot/wheeled/helios3/helios3_e.html

http://2bbie.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/tweel/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcdmH_hVWBY

The 'Tweel' is something we'd like to pursue as a possibility on our vehicle because of it's alleged durability and shock absorbing functions.  Obviously, it would have to be modified to deal with other scenarios, such as the ones on the Cat machines in the youtube video.  It would be pretty cool to further combine the idea of the 'stair climbing wheelchair' in the first link with the tweel to create a really weird, but potentially extremely effective wheels and tyres.  It'd be cool to hear anyone's thoughts on the Tweel - yay or nay?

We're liking the idea of the body providing buoyancy for the vehicle, to enable it to float.  The idea of using a BV206 style body is looking more attractive.  Does anyone have any information about the drive system for the front module of the BV?

Also, cheers for the pics clbarclay, the group are most appreciative  :thumbup:

Ah, does anyone know much about this beastie?:

http://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/fighting-vehicles/1488.aspx

Hope you all have a good weekend, as always, developments as they happen  :D

PS - As I was typing this carbore posted the thought about dual wheels - liking that idea btw.

[Suvvey]

The tweel seems like a clever idea but it may not be that good in muddy conditions. The mud would obviously get in through the open sides which may not be a problem when crawling through the mud but when you then get back on to the open road it would cause some very nasty balance issues. Also not to sure how long they would last in either urban or natural debris strewn areas. Would soon pick up bits in the sidewalls (or lack of them) and tear them to pieces. Maybe a more conventional tyre with good heavy duty sidewalls would be wiser.

As for the Jackal it is a new replacement for the land rover wolf based WMIK weapons system. Lots of grunt and much better  armoured underbelly to withstand mine strikes. Not sure if their are many new developments on it that would be of particular advantage for your needs. Unless you are planing on saving lives in extremely hostile areas :shock:

[clbarclay]

This dosn't show the engine/grear box, which sit directly above the chassis beam of the front half. The gearbox is linked to the transpherbox by a short prop shaft. The drive to the fron runs inside the chassis beam to the diff at the very front. Another propshaft links the transpher box to the rear diff (labled as the final drives in diagram).




Those tweels are interesting, but as shown they are not indestructable. If you do go for something like that then consider using tweels that are a similar size to common tyres and hubs with a common PCD so that if needs be spares could be borrowed from local vehicles rather than having to have another tweel. I may be wrong, but I though the tweels only had open side walls for demonstration purposes and production wheels could/would have side walls