Due to the usage of non-conventional solutions,
it is worth to take a look at Puma's suspension.
Spring elements, rollers carrying upper arms of
tracks, limit stops of drive wheels, and tension
wheels have been placed in the already men-
tioned two side modules. Modules are fixed to
the sides of the self-supported hull thanks to
flexible connections. Such a structure lowers
the amount of vibrations carried to the hull,
which increases its stability as the platform for
optoelectronic equipment and weapons. The
comfort of the crew has also been increased,
i.a. the level of noise inside the combat-assault
compartment was lowered from about 120 to
about 95 dB. The lowered risk of hull deforma-
tions caused by usage is another advantage.
The problem of strong bending moments near
sockets of control arms and side transmissions
refers to many vehicles with high-power drive
units. For the first time, removable suspension
modules were tested in the 1990s by Krauss-
Maffei. Among others, a modified prototype of
PUMA was used then. Later on, the efficiency
of that solution was confirmed with an
EGS demonstrator in an NGP program.
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