PSI - Issue 81

Mykola Stashkiv et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 81 (2026) 143–150

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The conceptual basis for a comprehensive analysis of such complex load-bearing structures is the study of their strength, reliability and durability under operational loads. The main challenges of such a comprehensive analysis are to adequately represent the properties of the real structure, to model the parameters of its static behaviour, to account for the features of the formation and evolution of its stress – strain state (SSS) in a dynamic formulation, and to evaluate the influence of existing crack like defects or corrosive environments on the SSS, etc. (Pidgurskyi et al. (2024)). Most research studies focus on the study of the material characteristics and design of the sprayer boom, its behavior under operating conditions, determination of the forces acting on the boom, and analysis of its strength and fatigue durability. In particular, the paper Vaddadi et al. (2021) discusses about low fidelity 1-Dimensional methodology to simulate the dynamic behavior of a sprayer boom, that can yield faster estimation of accelerations, joint loads and section forces. The paper explains dynamic analysis procedure for a 1D boom structure, equivalent material properties calculation, representation of various boom components, etc. It also describes the correlation between the simulation results and physical laboratory testing of the boom. The paper Hevko et al. (2021) presents the results of theoretical investigation of internal forces distribution in the components of a boom section of a crop-spraying machine in the static statement of the problem. The analytical results were verified through simulation of 3D model using the software based on the finite elements method (FEM). The paper Chen et al. (2024) investigates the dynamic behavior of the sprayer boom truss through modal experiments and finite element simulations. First, the modal parameters of the sprayer boom were obtained experimentally, confirming their accuracy and reliability. Subsequently, the finite element model of the sprayer boom was analysed using ANSYS Workbench. The paper Manea et al. (2018) presents the static and dynamic study of a 24 m sprayer boom structure. Based on the CAD model of the sprayer boom, a standard meshing procedure was used as a preprocessing step of a finite element analysis. The purpose of the linear static analysis was to determine the stress and deformation states developing in the boom under operating conditions. In the paper Cui et al. (2017) the dynamic characteristics of the passive suspension were studied, and the effects of factors such as damping, friction and pendulum length on the response characteristics were analyzed. A simulation model of active suspension based on hydraulic proportional control was developed, and the influence of gain coefficient, time constant and suspension structure parameters on the boom response was determined. Step response test and frequency response test were conducted on a spray boom with pendulum suspension. In the paper Yan et al. (2021) a dynamic behavior model and parameter optimization procedure for a spray boom were developed based on multi-body vibration, in order to study the influence of the boom sprayer motion in a complex working environment on the dynamic behavior of the sprayer boom. The paper Borchert and Schmidt (2015) presents a method that offers realistic depiction of horizontal motion behavior of agricultural sprayer booms and reduces the the complexity of the simulation model. Additionally, various solutions for reducing boom vibrations are presented and compared using simulation. In the paper Pashaee and Ghasemzadeh (2023) the capability of the SolidWorks to simulate and predict the dynamic behavior of a conventional sprayer boom is discussed. To validate the results, field tests were conducted using a conventional sprayer boom. The results showed that there was no significant difference at the 95% confidence level between the results of the computer simulation and the results obtained from the field test of conventional sprayer boom. The paper Stashkiv (2023) proposes a method for creating equivalent damage test specifications for a rig testing using specialized laboratory equipment. The edited channels of the sprayer’s booms field test data that retain all damage but considerably shorten the length of the drive files is received, providing significant benefits in accelerating rig testing of the sprayer booms. In the paper Stashkiv et al. (2022) the method and results of the strain-life fatigue analysis of the sprayer boom based on the field test data processing is described. A direct calculation of fatigue life and back-calculation for a scale factor that gives the target fatigue life were performed. The back calculation provides quantifiable stress or strain reduction targets for a redesign of the field sprayer's booms. The papers Leshchak et al. (2020) and Syrotyuk et al. (2021) provide a comparative analysis of the sprayer boom material in different aggressive environments. It is noted that local disturbances in the passive state of the metal surface lead to the intensive formation of corrosion pits, which is dangerous due to the possibility of their development and the appearance of crack-like defects in the structure. Most studies focus on the analysis of the stress-strain state of the defect-free sprayer boom, whereas articles investigating the crack resistance of a sprayer boom with a crack-like defect are practically nonexistent. However, there are studies of crack resistance for similar load-bearing structures under various design and operating conditions: tower (He et al. (2014)), portal (Dzioba et al. (2024)) and wheeled (Guan et al. (2025)) cranes; quarry excavators (Maury et al. (2014)); loaders (Meng et al. (2013), Rusiński et al. (2008)); conveyors (Polishchuk et al. (2016)); frame stru ctures (Nanda et al. (2014)); frames of mobile machines (Pidgurskyi et al. (2025)), etc. Several researchers have also published studies on the modeling of individual elements with crack-like defects, for example, modeling of an edge crack in a cross-section in the channel beam (Pidgurskyi et al. (2021)), in the I-beam (Pidgurskyi et al. (2024)) or a Z-beam (Dovbush et al. (2017)), surface semi-elliptical cracks (Pidgurskyi et al. (2022)). In many of these studies, the finite element method is used to study the SSS of an element with a crack (Koshelyuk and Tulashvili (2016);