(Elsevier, 2019-10-25) Latorre Biel, Juan Ignacio; Benito Amurrio, Marta; Pérez Ezcurdia, Amaya; Arana Navarro, Ignacio; Alfaro López, José Ramón; Ingeniería; Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
Roll-over protection structures (ROPS) and the use of safety belt is a successful combination
in agricultural vehicles. If during an accident, a vehicle overturns, a ROPS is designed to
deform plastically, absorbing potential energy of the vehicle, while not infringing the safety
volume around the driver. The addition of mechanical energy absorbers (MEA) to a ROPS
might enhance this behaviour, improving the safety provided. A disc-shaped mechanical
energy absorber, designed for this purpose, is analysed and some geometrical and
manufacturing features that influence their behaviour are described. Tensile tests of 6
different variants of this absorber have been carried out. The obtained loadedisplacement
curves have been linearized to facilitate the calculation of quantitative parameters that can
be used to characterise and compare the behaviour of the tested elements. The relation
between some geometrical and manufacturing features of the absorbers and the calculated
parameters is discussed. The results show that the proposed mechanical energy absorbers
present enough geometrical and manufacturing adjustable variables to cover a wide range
of applications.
