Armoured Vehicle Track Elastomers - Research and Development at MRL (Materials Research Laboratory)

Abstract

The Australian Army employs two basic types of Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) fitted with rubberized (elastomeric) track designs. The M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier entered Australian service in the 1960's and the Leopard AS1 Main Battle Tank in the 1970's. Adoption of elastomeric components in the form of bushings, roadwheel treads, roadwheel pads (roadwheel-side trackshoe pads) and track pads (ground-side track-shoe pads) has provided many improvements in track performance and maintenance requirements. However, the number of such components exhibiting field damage forwarded to MRL for investigation in the early 1980's indicated that the elastomers being used were not optimum for Australian conditions. This paper presents aspects of the work undertaken to improve track elastomer formulations for local industry production and AFV use. Australia. Keywords: Roadwheels, Track pads, Leopard bushings, Leopard roadwheels, Leopard track pads. (JES)

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 1988
Accession Number
ADA196934

Entities

People

  • T. E. Symes

Organizations

  • Defence Science and Technology Group

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Adhesion
  • Armored Personnel Carriers
  • Armored Vehicles
  • Australia
  • Department Of Defense
  • Elastomers
  • Manufacturing
  • Materials
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Natural Rubber
  • Particle Size
  • Physical Properties
  • Production
  • Resistance
  • Synthetic Rubber
  • Vehicles
  • Wear Resistance

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Pavement Materials Engineering.
  • Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures.