The Effect of Using the Same Tire Friction for Both Vehicles in Impact Speed Reconstructions 2021-01-0899
Most collision reconstructions implicitly assume the same tire/road friction coefficient for all vehicles, despite evidence that friction varies between tires, surfaces, and individual trials. Here we assess the errors introduced by an assumption of a single, universal friction coefficient when reconstructing a collision where vehicles actually had different tire frictions. We used Monte Carlo methods to generate 20,000 synthetic two-vehicle impacts and rest positions using different, randomized friction coefficients for each vehicle and randomized impact speeds. These rest positions were then used to reconstruct both vehicles’ impact speeds assuming a single, common friction coefficient. High and low bounds on the impact speeds were reconstructed using high and low bounds on the common friction. We found that more than 97% of the true impact speeds were in the ranges reconstructed using upper and lower friction bounds. The influence of the similar-friction assumption on the errors in the reconstructed speeds was secondary to the influence of using the wrong average friction for both of vehicles.
Citation: Heinrichs, B. and Toscano, D., "The Effect of Using the Same Tire Friction for Both Vehicles in Impact Speed Reconstructions," SAE Technical Paper 2021-01-0899, 2021, https://doi.org/10.4271/2021-01-0899. Download Citation
Author(s):
Bradley E. Heinrichs, Dwayne Toscano
Affiliated:
MEA Forensic Engineers & Scientists
Pages: 19
Event:
SAE WCX Digital Summit
ISSN:
0148-7191
e-ISSN:
2688-3627
Related Topics:
Tire friction
Accident reconstruction
Tires
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