Survey on the Lateral Stability of Wheeled Narrow-Track Tractors

Narrow-track tractors are spread worldwide, being used in important agricultural sectors such as vineyards, orchards, horticultural cultivation, greenhouses and nursery. The architecture of these tractors and their basic structure have remained practically unchanged in the last decades. Despite this, their construction can differ considering the origin of the design: (1) models coming from the traditional open-field tractors, having rigid body and front and rear wheels of different dimensions; (2) models derived from the evolution of the walking tractor, having both rigid or articulated body and iso-diametric wheels. In addition to the design, in case of lateral overturning the behaviour of a narrow tractor could be affected by many other features, such as the wheels dimension and inflation pressure and the fitting of important accessories. This paper is aimed to show the limit angles of the static lateral stability of some narrow-track tractors, adopting different testing procedures.