Predicting the Performance of Tractor Rollbars

Tractor overturns are the single leading cause of
agricultural fatalities in the United States.
Effective engineering controls to prevent these
deaths are available in the form of rollover
protective structures (ROPS) and seatbelts. Half of
all tractors in the USA are without ROPS. Cost-
effective ROPS (CROPS) have been developed to lower
the cost of retro-fitting a tractor with ROPS.
Experimental data demonstrates that the CROPS
prototype successfully completed SAE J2194 static
testing. A finite element analysis (FEA) model was
developed for the prototype based upon experimental
data. Probabilistic design techniques were utilized
to evaluate the effect of expected variation in
CROPS properties on standard testing performance.
Scenarios were predicted where the prototype would
fail SAE J2194 static testing.However, no scenarios
were predicted where the prototype failed OSHA
1928.52 static testing.