Prediction of lunar rover's moon tractive performance based on similitude theory

Similitude theory was introduced to study the wheel-soil interaction system of lunar rover, the terramechanical similitude model of the system was created. To predict a lunar rover's tractive performance under moon gravity, a model experimental method was presented based on lunar soil's lower cohesion. In this method, both the wheel shape and wheel size are invariable, the lunar soil simulant can be used as the model experimental soil. The indoor soil-bin test and particle flow simulation were combined to verify the effectiveness of this method, the verification result shows good accordance with the derived consequence of theoretical analysis, which indicates that the method has good feasibility and validity, thereby it can be used to predict a rover's tractive performance on lunar surface.