Design and Simulation of a Road Maintenance Vehicle with a Multi-working Position Manipulator and an Automatic Feeding Mechanism

Received: 25 March 2019 Accepted: 2 May 2019 The purpose of this study was to overcome the defects of existing road maintenance vehicles, the approach designs a new road maintenance vehicle with a multi-working position manipulator and an automatic feeding mechanism was adopted, the end of the manipulator was installed an indexable maintenance equipment, which integrates multiple functions like cutting, milling and pouring, all functions are driven by the same power source. During the maintenance, the indexable maintenance equipment can switch between different functions. In addition, an automatic feeding mechanism and a hot mix asphalt (HMA) heating and mixing system were set up to recover and reuse the waste generated in the maintenance. Finally, the parameters of the key parts of the vehicle were designed and calculated, yielding the final overall design of the road maintenance vehicle. The results indicated that this device can ensure that the physical consumption of lifting and maintenance equipment is reduced to the greatest extent during the construction process. The impacts of the obtained results are guarantee the construction process is safer and faster, the degree of automation in the construction process is higher, and workers are also kept away from the harsh construction environment.