This has never happened before: an Arctic road train from the Ural
For Arctic needs
Road transport for the Far North has long become an urgent problem for Russian industry. The melting ice of the Northern Sea Route opens up both new routes and access to countless natural resources. In a region where there are only directions, with a complete absence of roads, specific vehicles are required.
Solving problems exclusively with tracked platforms, as is done in the army (Vityaz transporter), is expensive and ineffective. The service life of caterpillars cannot be compared with that of a wheeled propulsion system. In the north, the distances are decent, so creating a family of vehicles with extreme cross-country ability for no less extreme conditions is a task of the first degree of importance.
The country's two automobile plants, KamAZ and UralAZ, are responsible for the design of modern heavy trucks. It was under their auspices that they began to create an Arctic SUV. One of the key players in this process was the department SM-10 “Wheeled Vehicles” of MSTU. N. E. Bauman. Scientists and engineers of the university are helping with the development of the KamAZ-6355 Arctic with the goal of “creating a high-tech production of environmentally friendly all-terrain vehicles on low-pressure tires for the development of the Arctic zones of the Russian Federation, Siberia and the Far East in the interests of the extractive industries.”
Kamaz "Arktika" exists in two versions.
Two modifications, 6x6 and 8x8, were built on KamAZ units for the main customer - Moscow State Engineering University (MAMI). A distinctive feature of the trucks is their articulated design, which significantly increases cross-country ability and maneuverability. Last time News there is not much about the project - there is a feeling that the authors of the project are trying to replace sanctioned imported components with domestic or Chinese analogues. For example, the Arktika checkpoint was initially equipped with an American Allison 4500.
The Ural-427701-75 bus was shown in the summer of 2023. Source: susu.ru
Fortunately, there is much more news about the Ural Arctic bus. The final version of the two-volume vehicle, Ural-427701-75, was presented in Chelyabinsk at the second All-Russian Forum “From Import Substitution to Technological Sovereignty” in the summer of 2023. The car was built by three organizations - the above-mentioned department SM-10 “Wheeled Vehicles” of Moscow State Technical University named after. N. E. Bauman, the Experimental Mechanical Engineering Research Institute of the South Ural State University and UralAZ itself.
Director of the Research Institute “Experimental Mechanical Engineering” of SUSU, Candidate of Technical Sciences Ramil Zakirov commented on the functionality of the new product:
“The Arctic bus has enormous functional significance. This is civilian equipment, it is in demand in the Far North. The uniqueness of this bus is that it can travel off-road. All this was created by young specialists from our university. The car will undergo testing in the future and prepare for serial production.”
In addition, Zakirov added:
“The bus is needed to transport people in the Far North at extremely low temperatures, as well as to transport equipment. In case of emergency situations inside the bus, complete autonomous life support is possible for XNUMX hours until help arrives. In addition, the Arctic bus is able to float for an hour while people are being evacuated.”
According to the developers, the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation is already ready to purchase Arctic buses for schools in the Arctic Circle. Ural-427701-75 became the first sign of a family of unified all-terrain vehicles, which, in addition to the bus, included a truck with a separate body and a road train.
Road train with active semi-trailer
The appearance of an Arctic road train on the horizon is a serious bid for world leadership in the class of vehicles for the conditions of the Far North. First of all, due to the active semi-trailer, which is used for the first time in equipment of this class.
The very concept of a semi-trailer that helps its tractor off-road is not new. In the Soviet Union you can find a lot of similar developments, including serial ones. The first prototypes appeared after the war on the initiative of designer Boris Mikhailovich Fitterman. In addition to the chassis designs and transmissions of trucks, Boris Mikhailovich is famous for the development of the first Soviet Zaporozhets ZAZ-965.
The active road train is a forced design compromise caused by the shortage of heavy trucks for the needs of the army. As soon as heavy trucks from the Minsk, Kurgan and Bryansk automobile plants went into production, the need for active road trains became less relevant. And now an unexpected return in the form of an Arctic “long-ship”. But first things first.
GAZ-63D. Source: kolesa.ru
GAZ-63D with an “active gun”. Source: kolesa.ru
Almost serial ZIL-137 with an active semi-trailer. Source: kolesa.ru
Experiments with active semi-trailers began in the 50s with the GAZ-63D truck tractor. The “Lawn” was equipped with a power take-off, cardan transmissions, gearboxes and intermediate supports on the semi-trailer.
The result is a complex, noisy and cumbersome semi-trailer active drive system. However, the mechanical drive had its advantages - relatively high reliability, high efficiency, the ability to unify standard units and components, as well as relatively simple maintenance. But it was not possible to combine all this on the GAZ-63D chassis, and the car remained in prototypes.
Later, they tried to attach a unit from an SD-63 “active gun” with an active drive from the tractor’s power take-off to the onboard GAZ-44A. There were still several years before the appearance of the first specialized artillery tractors, for example, ZIL-131 and Ural-375, so we had to get out of it in such exotic ways.
Experience the complexity of the mechanical drive of an active semi-trailer. Taken from the WKR “Justification of the parameters of a road train with an active drive of the trailer’s running wheels.” Author – M. V. Azev
In 1959, the ZIL-157V was built with a hydrostatic drive of the wheels of an active semi-trailer. Formally, the scheme is very simple - the hydraulic pump on the tractor pumps oil through a pipeline to the hydraulic motor on the semi-trailer. The advantages include large transmitted power per unit mass of the drive, relative simplicity of design, ease of control and automation, as well as the possibility of stepless control.
There were also some disadvantages - dependence of the drive characteristics on temperature (cold oil is reluctant to transmit torque), fire and explosion hazard (oil pipeline near the exhaust system of the tractor), high requirements for the purity of the working oil, low efficiency (like any hydraulic system) and low reliability due to possible oil leaks. The drivers of the ZIL-137, the first Soviet tractor with an active semi-trailer, became closely acquainted with the latter vice. Later it was joined by cars from Miass, Bryansk and Kremenchug. We probably didn’t deal with active trailers only in Naberezhnye Chelny.
Schemes of used transmissions of active semi-trailers. Taken from the WKR “Justification of the parameters of a road train with an active drive of the trailer’s running wheels.” Author – M. V. Azev
There is a third scheme for driving the wheels of an active semi-trailer - electric. The generator via power cables powers the electric motor on the drive axle. Such an electric transmission has a low noise level, but is very expensive, fire hazardous and not suitable for cold and humid climates. In the Soviet Union they experimented with this scheme on the ZIL, but eventually abandoned it.
For the Arctic “Ural”, the developers created their own drive circuit, somewhat different from those described above.
A 100-kilowatt diesel generator was installed in the stern of the semi-trailer - completely independent from the main motor of the road train. There are no exact data, but most likely the four-wheel drive is electric. The diesel generator performs several functions on the vehicle at once - driving a semi-trailer if necessary, power supplying a large residential module, a powerful electric winch with a thrust of up to 8 tons and a mass of external consumers. The active drive, according to factory workers, is equipped with an electric motor with a power of 73 kW. The second power unit significantly increases the service life of the main engine and the reliability of the entire structure.
The modular structure of the semi-trailer allows you to vary the purpose of the road train. Instead of a residential module, you can install a medical, educational, or even a small-sized canteen and deliver all this to the most remote corners of the Far North. In some areas, the Arctic Ural can replace expensive helicopters. A power reserve of 500 km is quite possible.
Of course, the machine is adapted to work at temperatures down to minus 50 degrees - all critical components are heated, and the materials withstand the properties of severe frost. Ten arched wheels of the road train, which do not allow the vehicle to move freely on public roads, can be dismantled and replaced with “road” narrow tires. A similar solution is found in the KAMAZ Arktika.
The management of UralAZ plans to launch serial production of an Arctic bus and semi-trailer as early as 2024. Time will tell how feasible this idea is, but so far there are no serious obstacles to this.
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