Lateral forces on heavy trucks: contributions from wind

Le résumé fourni par la source

A tractor semi-trailer unit equipped with onboard instrumentation that measured speed, lateral accelerations, and the roll angle of the vehicle was driven around a test site (interchange ramp) under varying wind conditions. A portable weather station was installed in the centre of the test track. The rollover threshold of the truck was calculated based on the characteristics of the vehicle and then compared with the lateral accelerations measured on the test vehicle. An analysis of the data indicated that there existed significant differences in lateral accelerations under scenarios of varying wind speeds, verifying that wind can contribute to rollover. An analysis of the rollover threshold revealed that the lateral accelerations experienced by the truck were often greater than the rollover threshold for brief periods of time. The time periods were not sufficiently long enough to cause rollover of the vehicle. The research demonstrated that the technique developed on this project could be used to determine the safe speed for heavy trucks operating on specific sections of the roadway.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.