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The number of speed humps (sleeping policemen) has seen a global increase in the last decade. This paper addresses the geometric requirements of these humps using Genetic Algorithms optimization techniques to control the speed, stability, and ride feel of the traversing vehicles. The interaction between road hump profile and the modeled vehicles (passenger and a two-axle truck) are studied with a dynamic model. The shape of the proposed profile is described by numbers of amplitudes of harmonic functions. The extreme acceleration of the drivers’ seats of the vehicles traversing the hump is set as multiobjective function for the optimization process, taking into consideration the road-holding ability represented by the tire lift-off speed. The results show that hump geometry can be improved while fulfilling the requirements of speed control and vehicle dynamic responses.

In this paper, a direct technique to estimate the rollover threshold limits of partially filled tank trucks is applied for banked roadways. Overturning and restoring moments are calculated as functions of tank shape, fill level, gradient of both liquid cargo free surface and the lateral inclination of banked road surfaces. The static rollover threshold of tanker trucks traveling on laterally banked roadways is estimated by balancing the net value of the total overturning moment against the net value of the restoring moment. Different filling ratios are considered for circular, elliptical and modified tank vehicles. The rollover threshold limits are calculated considering a superelevation range of (0.0-0.1) for the lateral road banking as defined by Blue and Kulakowski (1991). It is shown that the vehicle rollover threshold limit increases with an increase of the angle of the lateral road banking.

The main objective of this research is to find a general empirical formula to predict vehicle frontal area applied to most types of vehicles. This was done on 21 vehicles; passenger cars, buses and trucks by calculating their frontal area by using image processing technique on cars photos extracted from catalogues. The software (Data Fit) is used to establish the required empirical formula. The results showed that the empirical formula is simple and accurate enough for finding out the vehicles frontal areas.

It is well known that the excessive levels of vibration in heavy vehicles negatively affect driver comfortability, cargo safety and road condition. The current challenge in the field of suspension design for heavy vehicles is to optimize the suspension dynamic parameters to improve such requirements. Almost all of the previous work in this field is based on applying the mathematical optimization considering active or passive suspension systems to obtain the optimal dynamic parameters. In this work a new passive suspension systems for heavy trucks is suggested and compared with the conventional passive suspension systems. The new systems rely on transferring the vertical motion, (vibration), into horizontal motion through a bell-crank mechanism to be taken by a horizontal passive suspension system. The system dynamic parameters like body acceleration, suspension travel and dynamic tire load are calculated assuming random excitation due to road irregularities.

Proportional integral derivative (PID) control technique is a famous and cost-effective control strategy, in real implementation, applied in various engineering applications. Also, the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is extensively applied in various industrial problems. This paper addresses the usage of the ACO algorithm to tune the PID controller gains for a semi-active heavy vehicle suspension system integrated with cabin and seat. The magnetorheological (MR) damper is used in main suspension as a semi-active device to enhance the ride comfort and vehicle stability. The proposed semi-active suspension consists of a system controller that calculate the desired damping force using a PID controller tuned using ACO, and a continuous state damper controller that predict the input voltage that is required to track the desired damping force.