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Tractors are the self-propelled vehicle which finds its major application in agriculture, haulage and construction equipment. The product development cycle time of a tractor is more as compared to automobiles since it has to undergo rigorous field testing. Bringing more realistic component and system level validation in the test lab will drastically reduce the product development cycle time. Non-availability of standard usage pattern and customer-correlated proving ground pose a bigger challenge for bringing the field conditions to the lab. As a result, the tractor has to be instrumented with sensors and load-time history needs to be acquired as per real world usage pattern. Raw data from the field cannot be used directly for lab testing since the number of load cycles will be very high. Raw data have to be edited based on damage calculation and fatigue sensitivity analysis technique.

Roll-over protective structures (ROPS) are safety devices which provide a safe environment for the tractor operator during an accidental rollover. The ROPS must pass either a dynamic or static testing sequence or both in accordance with SAE J2194. These tests examine the performance of ROPS to withstand a sequence of loadings and to see if the clearance zone around the operator station remains intact in the event of an overturn. In order to shorten the time and reduce the cost of new product development, non-linear finite element (FE) analysis is practiced routinely in ROPS design and development. By correlating the simulation with the results obtained from testing a prototype validates the CAE model and its assumptions. The FE analysis follows SAE procedure J2194 for testing the performance of ROPS. The Abaqus version 6.12 finite element software is used in the analysis, which includes the geometric, contact and material nonlinear options.