Dynamic modeling of the front structure of an excavator

This paper presents a new mathematical model of 4 degrees of freedom of links to qualitatively describe the dynamic behavior of the front structure of an excavator. In the model, the effects of couple of forces as new additional effects are involved. The exact forms and solutions for position-varying moments of inertia used in this model are presented. A topologic structure is used for the kinematic analysis of the body frame. The numerical results show that the new additional effects can change the angular kinetic energy of all links to a significant degree when the upper structure swings. The results suggest that the new additional effects should be taken into account for analysis of excavator dynamics.