Optimization of suspension system of heavy off-road vehicle for stability enhancement using integrated anti-roll bar and coiling spring mechanism

Short suspension system has an indispensable effect on vehicle handling and ride,so,optimization of vehicle suspension system is one of the most effective methods,which could considerably enhance the vehicle stability and controllability.Motion control,stability maintenance and ride comfort improvement are fundamental issues in design of suspension system of off-road vehicles.In this work,a dependent suspension system mostly used in off-road vehicles is modeled using Trucksim software.Then,geometric parameters of suspension system are optimized using integrated anti-roll bar and coiling spring in a way that ride comfort,handling and stability of vehicle are improved.The simulation results of suspension system and variations of geometric parameters due to road roughness and different steering angles are presented in Trucksim and effects of optimization of suspension system during various driving maneuvers in both optimized and un-optimized conditions are compared.The simulation results indicate that the type of suspension system and geometric parameters have significant effect on vehicle performance.

Analysis of Safety Assessment and Testing of Heavy Traffic Vehicles on Old Bridges Without Data

This article presents a real-life project that aimed to evaluate the safety of traffic vehicles on old bridges without any prior data.The project involved various safety inspections,including conventional,static,and dynamic load inspections and safety assessments.After conducting these tests,it was concluded that the structure of the old bridge is relatively safe,with only a few bumps.The bridge could function normally following appropriate treatment.The analysis provides valuable insights into the assessment of the quality and safety of such bridges to ensure the safe driving of heavy vehicles.

Full Power Hydraulic Brake System Based on Double Pipelines for Heavy Vehicles

The hydraulic caliper disc brake system with air-over-oil is widely adopted at present for heavy vehicles,which makes use of air pressure system propelling the hydraulic pressure system acting on friction plates divided and combined for braking.There are some disadvantages such as pneumatic components failure,dust polluted and produce lots of heat in hydraulic caliper disc brake system.Moreover,considering the demands of the high speed,heavy weight,heavy load and fast brake of heavy vehicles,the full power hydraulic brake system based on double pipelines for heavy vehicles is designed and analyzed in this paper.The scheme of the full power hydraulic brake system,in which the triloculare cylinder is controlled by dual brake valve,is adopted in the brake system.The full power hydraulic brake system can accomplish steering brake,parking brake and emergent brake for heavy vehicles.Furthermore,electronic control system that is responsible for coordinating the work of hydraulic decelerator and hydraulic brake system is developed for different speed brakes.Based on the analysis of the influence of composed unit and connecting pipeline on braking performance,the nonlinear mathematic model is established for the full power hydraulic brake system.The braking completion time and braking pressure in braking performance of the double-pipeline steering brake and parking brake are discussed by means of simulation experiments based on Matlab/Simulink,and the simulation results prove that the braking performance of steering brake and parking brake meets the designing requirement of the full power hydraulic brake system.Moreover,the test-bed experiments of the brake system for heavy vehicles are carried out.The experimental data prove that the braking performance achieves the goal of the design,and that the full power hydraulic brake system based on double pipelines can effectively enhance braking performance,ensure braking reliability and security for heavy vehicles.

General Torsional Stiffness Matching of Off-road Vehicle

Increasing frame torsional stiffness of off-road vehicle will lead to the decrease of body torsional deformation, but the increase of torsional loads of frame and suspension system and the decrease of wheel adhesive weight. In severe case, a certain wheel will be out of contact with road surface. Appropriate matching of body, frame and suspension torsional stiffnesses is a difficult problem for off-road vehicle design. In this paper, these theoretically analytic models of the entire vehicle, body, frame and suspension torsional stiffness are constructed based on the geometry and mechanism of a light off-road vehicle＇s body, frame and suspension. The body and frame torsional stiffnesses can be calculated by applying body CAE method, meanwhile the suspension＇s rolling angle stiffness can be obtained by the bench test of the suspension＇s elastic elements. Through fixing the entire vehicle, using sole timber to raise wheels to simulate the road impact on a certain wheel, the entire vehicle torsional stiffness can be calculated on the geometric relation and loads of testing. Finally some appropriate matching principles of the body, frame and suspension torsional stiffness are summarized according to the test and analysis results. The conclusion can reveal the significance of the suspension torsional stiffness on off-road vehicle＇s torsion-absorbing capability. The results could serve as a reference for the design of other off-road vehicles.

Impact coefficient and reliability of mid-span continuous beam bridge under action of extra heavy vehicle with low speed

To analyze the dynamic response and reliability of a continuous beam bridge under the action of an extra heavy vehicle, a vehicle–bridge coupled vibration model was established based on the virtual work principle and vehicle–bridge displacement compatibility equation, which can accurately simulate the dynamic characteristics of the vehicle and bridge. Results show that deck roughness has an important function in the effect of the vehicle on the bridge. When an extra heavy vehicle passes through the continuous beam bridge at a low speed of 5 km/h, the impact coefficient reaches a high value, which should not be disregarded in bridge safety assessments. Considering that no specific law exists between the impact coefficient and vehicle speed, vehicle speed should not be unduly limited and deck roughness repairing should be paid considerable attention. Deck roughness has a significant influence on the reliability index, which decreases as deck roughness increases. For the continuous beam bridge in this work, the reliability index of each control section is greater than the minimum reliability index. No reinforcement measures are required for over-sized transport.

Effect of the off-road terrains on the ride comfort of construction vehicles

In order to evaluate the impact of off-road terrains on the ride comfort of construction vehicles,a nonlinear dynamic model of the construction vehicles interacting with the terrain deformations is established based on Matlab/Simulink software.The weighted root mean square(RMS)acceleration responses and the power spectral density(PSD)acceleration responses of the driver s seat heave,the pitch and roll angle of the cab in the low-frequency region are chosen as objective functions under different operation conditions of the vehicle.The results show that the impact of off-road terrains on the driver s ride comfort and health is clear under various conditions of deformable terrains and range of vehicle velocities.In particular,the driver s ride comfort is greatly affected by a soil terrain while the comfortable shake of the driver is strongly affected by a sand terrain.In addition,when the vehicle travels on a poor soil terrain in the frequency range below 4 Hz,more resonance peaks of acceleration PSD responses occurred than that on a rigid road of ISO 2631-1 level C.Thus,the driver s health is significantly affected by the deformable terrain in a low-frequency range.

Adaptive fault-tolerant control of heavy lift launch vehicle via differential algebraic observer

A novel adaptive fault-tolerant control scheme in the differential algebraic framework was proposed for attitude control of a heavy lift launch vehicle （HLLV）. By using purely mathematical transformations, the decoupled input-output representations of HLLV were derived, rendering three decoupled second-order systems, i.e., pitch, yaw and roll channels. Based on a new type of numerical differentiator, a differential algebraic observer （DAO） was proposed for estimating the system states and the generalized disturbances, including various disturbances and additive fault torques. Driven by DAOs, three improved proportional-integral- differential （PID） controllers with disturbance compensation were designed for pitch, yaw and roll control. All signals in the closed-loop system were guaranteed to be ultimately uniformly bounded by utilization of Lyapunov＇s indirect method. The convincing numerical simulations indicate that the proposed control scheme is successful in achieving high performance in the presence of parametric perturbations, external disturbances, noisy corruptions, and actuator faults.

An Eco-Route Planner for Heavy Duty Vehicles

Driving style,traffic and weather conditions have a significant impact on vehicle fuel consumption and in particular,the road freight traffic significantly contributes to the CO2 increase in atmosphere.This paper proposes an Eco-Route Planner devoted to determine and communicate to the drivers of Heavy-Duty Vehicles(HDVs)the eco-route that guarantees the minimum fuel consumption by respecting the travel time established by the freight companies.The proposed eco-route is the optimal route from origin to destination and includes the optimized speed and gear profiles.To this aim,the Cloud Computing System architecture is composed of two main components:the Data Management System that collects,fuses and integrates the raw external sources data and the Cloud Optimizer that builds the route network,selects the eco-route and determines the optimal speed and gear profiles.Finally,a real case study is discussed by showing the benefit of the proposed Eco-Route planner.

Research on Electro Hydraulic Proportional Control for Heavy Vehicle Blend Braking System

A blend braking system of heavy vehicle was proposed.The main control part of the system is the electro hydraulic proportional servo valve.A nonlinear model of brake cylinder controlled by the valve was deduced through the analysis of its control property and system feature.The transfer function of the system was also proposed,and the hydraulic inherent frequency and the PID closed-loop system feature were calculated.The simulated result is consistent with those tested in the bench and on the site with 50 t heavy vehicle.The experimental result shows that the control method has quick response and high precision.

The Development Characteristics and Trends of Heavy Launch Vehicles

Heavy launch vehicles represent the ability of a country to enter space and utilize space resources. In re-cent years, with the growth in human space exploration, the major aerospace powers and companies in the world areplanning to develop heavy launch vehicles. This study analyzes the development of heavy launch vehicles in the world,reviews the characteristics of China's heavy launch vehicle serial configuration, and then proposes common points anddevelopment trends of future heavy launch vehicles in the world.

Practical Model for Real Structure and Performance of Heavy Vehicles

In this paper, a new practical model for real heavy vehicle structure is developed to investigate dynamic responses under steering/acceleration or braking maneuvers. The generalized six DoFs （degrees-of-freedom） nonlinear vehicle model M1 including longitudinal, lateral, yaw, vertical, roll and pitch dynamics is validated using the measured data reported in different studies. This model takes the CG （center of gravity） of sprung mass, unsprung mass and total vehicle mass into account. Based on this model, the effects of the inertia parameters on the vehicle dynamic responses are investigated for more comprehensive assessments of the model structure. Another nonlinear vehicle model 342 derived from M1 which assumes that the vehicle has a single CG as reported in literature is also developed. The dynamic responses of the vehicle model Mj are compared with those of the model M2 to demonstrate the performance potential of the proposed nonlinear model. The results of dynamic responses with the nonlinear vehicle model MI suggest that the model could offer considerable potential in realizing enhanced ride and handling performance, as well as improved roll and pitch properties in a flexible manner.

Cost Impact of Increasing Heavy Vehicle Loads on Bridges

This study aimed to investigate the cost impact of meeting the increase in freight demand by doubling the truck weight （AS 1 ）, doubling the traffic volume （AS2）, or legalizing a new-proposed-truck of 97-kip weight instead of the currently legal 80-kip truck （AS3）. The State of Michigan＇s average daily traffic database of year 2001 has been used as a case study. The study was applied only on the very common US Bridge with RC （reinforced concrete） deck over steel girder. Sampling criteria also includes the age of the bridges. The study covered the four-cost-impact categories provided by the NCHRP （National Cooperative Research Program）. The current truck weight and double traffic volume （AS2） show the best scenario to meet the increase in freight demand. However, doubling the truck weight with the current traffic volume （AS 1） was the worst scenario. The use of the proposed 97-kip truck with the current traffic volume （AS3） compromises both, meeting the increase in freight demand and the cost impact.

Study on the Impact of Heavy Transport Vehicles Braking System Requirements on Road Safety in Costa Rica

Accidents involving heavy vehicles might show high mortality rates, so it is important to study ways of reducing them. in this research, it was carried out an analysis of the regulations concerning heavy vehicle braking systems in Costa Rica. And some opportunities of improving road safety regarding heavy vehicle braking systems were identified. The analysis showed several regulatory weaknesses, among which were found： lack of regulatory controls of vehicles importation, the friction coefficient associated to maximum braking distance is not specified, the use of technologies that guarantee a stable braking is not compulsory, the measuring procedure of braking efficacy in vehicle inspection shows some deficiencies, and little controls have been established on maintenance practices of heavy vehicle fleets.

Design of a Preview Controller for Articulated Heavy Vehicles

The paper presents a preview controller design for ATS （active trailer steering） systems to improve high-speed stability of AHVs （articulated heavy vehicles）. An AHV consists of a towing unit, namely tractor or truck, and one or more towed units which called trailers. Individual units are connected to one another at articulated joints by mechanical couplings. Due to the multi-unit configurations, AHVs exhibit unique unstable motion modes, including jack-knifing, trailer swing and rollover. These unstable motion modes are the leading cause of highway accidents. To prevent these unstable motion modes, the preview controller, namely the LPDP （lateral position deviation preview） controller, is proposed. For a truck/full-trailer combination, the LPDP controller is designed to control the steering of the front and rear axle wheels of the trailing unit. The calculation of the corrective steering angle of the trailer front axle wheels is based on the preview information of the lateral position deviation of the trajectory of the axle center from that of the truck front axle center. Similarly, the steering angle of the trailer rear axle wheels is calculated by using the lateral position deviation of the trajectory of the axle center from that of the truck front axle. To perform closed-loop dynamic simulations and evaluate the vehicle performance measure, a driver model is introduced and it ＇derives＇ the AHV model based on well-defined testing specifications. The proposed preview control scheme in the continuous time domain is developed by using the LQR （linear quadratic regular） technique. The closed-loop simulation results indicate that the performance of the AHV with the LPDP controller is improved by decreasing rearward amplification ratio from the baseline value of 1.28 to 0.98 and reducing transient off-tracking by 95.03%. The proposed LPDP control algorithm provides an alternative method for the design optimization of AHVs with ATS systems.

Study on the Fuzzy Reliability of the Bearing in Planetary Transmission System for Heavy-Loaded Vehicles

Based on the fuzzy mathematics theory and reliability design methods, the fuzzy reliability of the rolling bearing in the planetary transmission system for heavy-loaded vehicles is analysed. The reliability and the fuzzy life expectancy of bearings in a practical planetary gear box are calculated in detail. The results show that the methods give a reference to the correct assessment of such type of bearing. Some measures to improve the reliability are also

Derivation of a Representative Engine Duty Cycle from On-Road Heavy-Duty Vehicle Driving Data

The heavy-duty vehicle fleet involved in delivering water and sand makes noticeable issues of exhaust emissions and fuel consumption in the process of shale gas development. To examine the possibility of converting these heavy-duty diesel engines to run on natural gas-diesel dual-fuel, a transient engine duty cycle representing the real-world engine working conditions is necessary. In this paper, a methodology is proposed, and a target engine duty cycle comprising of 2231 seconds is developed from on-road data collected from 11 on-road sand and water hauling trucks. The similarity of inherent characteristics of the developed cycle and the base trip observed is evidenced by the 2.05% error of standard deviation and average values for normalized engine speed and engine torque. Our results show that the proposed approach is expected to produce a representative cycle of in-use heavy-duty engine behavior.

Theoretical and Experimental Study on The Speed-up of Freight Train with Mixed Marshaling of Light and Heavy Vehicle

To study the influence of the speed-up of a freight train with mixed marshaling of light and heavy vehicles on the dynamic behavior,a dynamic model of the freight train was established based on the modular method of cyclic variables,and the dynamic behavior of the freight train was simulated and analyzed under different marshaling patterns,speeds and line conditions.On-site speed-up test with different marshaling freight trains was carried out,and the stability and ride-index of the train before and after the speed-up were compared and analyzed.The feasibility of increasing the speed of freight trains with mixed marshaling of light and heavy cars was demonstrated theoretically and experimentally.The results show that the theory is in good agreement with the test,which can effectively reflect the dynamic behavior of the vehicle.The dynamic behavior of the freight train in the study meets the requirements of increasing speed to 90 km/h.This paper provides a theoretical basis and method for railway freight transportation and the speed-up of freight vehicles.

Dynamic Reliability Assessment of Heavy Vehicle Crossing a Prototype Bridge Deck by Using Simulation Technology and Health Monitoring Data

Overloads of vehicle may cause damage to bridge structures,and how to assess the safety influence of heavy vehicles crossing the prototype bridge is one of the challenges.In this report,using a large amount of monitored data collected from the structural health monitoring system(SHMS)in service of the prototype bridge,of which the bridge type is large-span continuous rigid frame bridge,and adopting FEM simulation technique,we suggested a dynamic reliability assessment method in the report to assess the safety impact of heavy vehicles on the prototype bridge during operation.In the first place,by using the health monitored strain data,of which the selected monitored data time range is before the opening of traffic,the quasi dynamic reliability around the embedded sensor with no traffic load effects is obtained;then,with FEM technology,the FEM simulation model of one main span of the prototype bridge is built by using ANSYS software and then the dynamic reliability when the heavy vehicles crossing the prototype bridge corresponding to the middle-span web plate is comprehensively analyzed and discussed.At last,assuming that the main beam stress state change is in the stage of approximately linear elasticity under heavy vehicle loads impact,the authors got the impact level of heavy vehicles effects on the dynamic reliability of the prototype bridge.Based on a large number of field measured data,the dynamic reliability value calculated by our proposed methodology is more accurate.The method suggested in the paper can do good for not only the traffic management but also the damage analysis of bridges.

Vehicle and terrain interaction based on Adams-Matlab co-simulation

A kind of construction truck model is built in Adams based on multi-body dynamic theory. The rigid and elastic wheels of tire-soil contact models are proposed based on the Bekker pressure model and the Jonasi shear soil model, and they are described in the form of S-function to enhance the calculation efficiency and simulation accuracy. Finally, the interaction of truck and soil is simulated by Adams-Maflab co-simulation to study the influence of soft terrain on the ride comfort of vehicles. The co-simulation results reveal that the terrain properties have a great influence on the ride comfort of vehicles as well as driving speed, road roughness and cargo weight. This co-simulation model is convenient for adding the factor of terrain deformation to the analysis of vehicle ride comfort. It can also be used to optimize suspension system parameters especially for off-road vehicles.

Road User Charging for Urban Freight Vehicles: A Systems Approach

Road user charging (RUC) has a long history as a mechanism to recover infrastructure maintenance and capital costs. The present RUC systems are facing issues such as transparency, cross-subsidization, environmental concerns and reducing revenue due to the likes of lessening fuel tax as vehicles become more efficient. Therefore, this paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the present RUC mechanisms implemented in the world with respect to stakeholder problems and demands of the freight industry and to describe the need for a more appropriate, practical and sustainable approach that can be used in the future. Finally, a model is proposed that is transparent and considers usage-based charging addressing most of the weaknesses highlighted in the models reviewed. Further, it considers externalities produced by heavy vehicles into account. The model has the potential to provide answers to key stakeholder issues and will lead to a sustainable freight transport system in the future. Encouraging fuel-efficient modes, optimization of loading, routing and logistics systems, and long term land use planning are a few of them.