Re-examined principles of thrust generation by a track on soft ground

Dr. Bekker’s first book Theory of land locomotion offers in fact two different concepts of thrust generation on soft ground with respect to the slip: (a) as the push of grousers causing horizontal soil “distortion” and (b) as the shear force in the failure plane linked with the shear deformation. Bekker preferred the second concept and backed it up by the unique shear-ring measuring technique. To clear up the matter, the author decided to re-examine the thrust generation by a track plate experimentally in field conditions. The tests have shown that the initial stage of thrust generation in compressible ground is always horizontal soil compression by grousers, which divides the soil under a track into separate blocks initially at rest. This compression increases at least to the transition point, when a block is sheared off simultaneously at the bottom and in both lateral planes and starts sliding along the channel formed by the preceding grouser. The analysis of these measurements enabled to define the compressive displacement of the face of the soil block (travel of the grouser) appurtenant to the mentioned transition point, useful to define the thrust–slip curve. The case may also be described by the conventional shear stress–shear displacement relationship, imagined to take place in the bottom failure plane, however, namely the “shear displacement” is rather an unusual quantity.