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This paper describes how Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology is used by a U.S. truck manufacturer to define and evaluate certain aspects of the driver's visibility. CAD programs and 3-dimensional techniques were developed to replace 2-dimensional drawing board practices that are time consuming and cumbersome. This paper specifically describes how CAD technology is used to 1) establish the driver's direct field of view, 2) define and evaluate the effectiveness of the swept area of the windshield, and 3) determine the obscuration of the instrument panel by the steering wheel.

This paper describes application examples of RAMSIS, a 3-D CAD human model for ergonomic truck evaluations, to truck design. RAMSIS realistically simulates truck driver postures and locations, an important prerequisite to having confidence in subsequent ergonomic analyses. We show examples of how visibility evaluations compare to traditional SAE methods, arm reach and force evaluation; and an example for entry/exit evaluations.

The dynamic behavior of commercial vehicles has been studied over the last 25 years, mainly in Europe and America. Earlier tests took place as far back as the thirties with the handicap, that tire properties were vastly unknown at that point in time. Today adequate computer systems have yielded the capability for studies of complex vehicle systems. Although being by no means complete, the knowledge of dynamic behavior of automobiles is considered state of the art, while that for commercial vehicles is still largely empirical. Some of the unique problems of commercial vehicles are: huge payloads and a wide range of variable masses which create high side to side and or fore aft load transfers, due to a high center of gravity, mutual influence of the various units of a truck combination by means of couplings, e.g. different accelerations or decelerations of tractor and trailer.