Review of Parameters Affecting Stability of Partially Filled Heavy-Duty Tankers 1999-01-3709

Partially filled tanker trucks are susceptible to rollover instabilities due to fluid sloshing. Due to the catastrophic nature of accidents involving the rollover of tanker trucks, several investigations have been conducted on the parameters affecting stability of partially filled heavy-duty tankers. Since stability of heavy-duty tankers undergoing on-road maneuvers such as braking, and/or lane changing has been an issue that concerned many researchers for a long time, a literature review has been conducted which underlines the most important contributions in this field. This review covers work done in the field of fluid-structure interaction, yaw and roll stability of heavy-vehicles, and fluid-vehicle dynamic interaction. In addition, vehicle stability issues are addressed such as jack-knifing, side slipping, vehicle geometry and container geometry among others. Several mechanical models that have been proposed to simulate the fluid sloshing motion effects are also covered in this review as well as experimental work done in this field.

Approaches to assess the stability of tanker trucks vary significantly based on the assumptions made on the above mentioned issues. However, for partially filled tanker-trucks, the approaches available for stability assessment have yet to be generalized in order to include various maneuvers, vehicle and road configurations.