Traction Control for Off-Road Construction Vehicles

This project aims at improving traction control characteristics for wheel loaders and haulers. Locked differentials cause increased wear of the driveline and increased fuel consumption, problems that research might solve.

At present, drivers of these machines can choose between open or closed differentials. But often they prefer to lock the differentials, thus distributing the torque equally between the wheels and thereby almost always avoiding wheel slip. However, locked differentials cause increased wear of the driveline, increased fuel consumption and greater tyre wear. Therefore it is worthwhile to investigate other solutions such as limited slip differentials or differentials with a clutch where the torque is distributed as necessary among the driving wheels.