Search Results

Tire tread separation events, a category of tire disablements, can be sub-categorized into two main types of separations. These include full tread separations, in which the tread around the entire circumference of the tire separates from the tire carcass, and partial tread separations, in which a portion of the tread separates and the flap remains attached to the tire for an extended period of time. In either case, the tire can remain inflated or lose air. Relatively, there have been few partial tire tread separation tests presented in the literature compared to full tread separation tests. In this study, the results of 25 full and partial tire tread separation tests, conducted with a variety of vehicles at highway speeds, are reported. Cases in which the tire remains inflated and loses air pressure are both considered. The testing was performed on a straight section of road and primarily focused on rear tire disablements.

Video and photo based photogrammetry software has many applications in the accident reconstruction community including documentation of vehicles and scene evidence. Photogrammetry software has developed in its ease of use, cost, and effectiveness in determining three dimensional data points from two dimensional photographs. Contemporary photogrammetry software packages offer an automated solution capable of generating dense point clouds with millions of 3D data points from multiple images. While alternative modern documentation methods exist, including LiDAR technologies such as 3D scanning, which provide the ability to collect millions of highly accurate points in just a few minutes, the appeal of automated photogrammetry software as a tool for collecting dimensional data is the minimal equipment, equipment costs and ease of use.

PC-Crash is a vehicular accident simulation software that is widely used by the accident reconstruction community. The goal of this article is to review the prior literature that has addressed the capabilities of PC-Crash and its accuracy and reliability for various applications (planar collisions, rollovers, and human motion). In addition, this article aims to add additional analysis of the capabilities of PC-Crash for simulating planar collisions and rollovers. Simulation analysis of five planar collisions originally reported and analyzed by Bailey [2000] are reexamined. For all five of these collisions, simulations were obtained with the actual impact speeds that exhibited excellent visual agreement with the physical evidence. These simulations demonstrate that, for each case, the PC-Crash software had the ability to generate a simulation that matched the actual impact speeds and the known physical evidence.

When a vehicle with protruding wheel studs makes contact with another vehicle or object in a sideswipe configuration, the tire sidewall, rim and wheel studs of that vehicle can deposit distinct geometrical damage patterns onto the surfaces it contacts. Prior research has demonstrated how relative speeds between the two vehicles or surfaces can be calculated through analysis of the distinct contact patterns. This paper presents a methodology for performing this analysis by visually modeling the interaction between wheel studs and various surfaces, and presents a method for automating the calculations of relative speed between vehicles. This methodology also augments prior research by demonstrating how the visual modeling and simulation of the wheel stud contact can extend to almost any surface interaction that may not have any previous prior published tests, or test methods that would be difficult to setup in real life.

This paper reports testing and analysis of the braking and swerving capabilities of on-road, three-wheeled motorcycles. A three-wheeled vehicle has handling and stability characteristics that differ both from two-wheeled motorcycles and from four-wheeled vehicles. The data reported in this paper will enable accident reconstructionists to consider these different characteristics when analyzing a three-wheeled motorcycle operator’s ability to brake or swerve to avoid a crash. The testing in this study utilized two riders operating two Harley-Davidson Tri-Glide motorcycles with two wheels in the rear and one in the front. Testing was also conducted with ballast to explore the influence of passenger or cargo weight. Numerous studies have documented the braking capabilities of two-wheeled motorcycles with riders of varying skill levels and with a range of braking systems.

This paper presents a methodology for accurately representing dawn and dusk lighting conditions (twilight) through photographs and video recordings. Attempting to generate calibrated photographs and video during twilight conditions can be difficult, since the time available to capture the light changes rapidly over time. In contrast, during nighttime conditions, when the sun is no longer contributing light directly or indirectly through the sky dome, matching a specific time of night is not as relevant, as man-made lights are the dominate source of illumination. Thus, the initial setup, calibration and collection of calibrated video, when it is dark, is not under a time constraint, but during twilight conditions the time frame may be narrow. This paper applies existing methods for capturing calibrated footage at night but develops a method for adjusting the footage in the event matching an exact time during twilight is necessary.

Collision statistics show that more than half of all pedestrian fatalities caused by vehicles occur at night. The recognition of objects at night is a crucial component in driver responses and in preventing nighttime pedestrian accidents. To investigate the root cause of this fact pattern, Richard Blackwell conducted a series of experiments in the 1950s through 1970s to evaluate whether restricted viewing time can be used as a surrogate for the imperfect information available to drivers at night. The authors build on these findings and incorporate the responses of drivers to objects in the road at night found in the SHRP-2 naturalistic database. A closed road outdoor study and an indoor study were conducted using an automatic shutter system to limit observation time to approximately ¼ of a second. Results from these limited exposure time studies showed a positive correlation to naturalistic responses, providing a validation of the time-limited exposure technique.

Accurately reconstructing the speed of a yawing and braking vehicle requires an estimate of the varying rates at which the vehicle decelerated. This paper explores the accuracy of several approaches to making this calculation. The first approach uses the Bakker-Nyborg-Pacejka (BNP) tire force model in conjunction with the Nicolas-Comstock-Brach (NCB) combined tire force equations to calculate a yawing and braking vehicle's deceleration rate. Application of this model in a crash reconstruction context will typically require the use of generic tire model parameters, and so, the research in this paper explored the accuracy of using such generic parameters. The paper then examines a simpler equation for calculating a yawing and braking vehicle's deceleration rate which was proposed by Martinez and Schlueter in a 1996 paper. It is demonstrated that this equation exhibits physically unrealistic behavior that precludes it from being used to accurately determine a vehicle's deceleration rate.

There are numerous publically available smart phone applications designed to track the speed and position of the user. By accessing the phones built in GPS receivers, these applications record the position over time of the phone and report the record on the phone itself, and typically on the application’s website. These applications range in cost from free to a few dollars, with some, that advertise greater functionality, costing significantly higher. This paper examines the reliability of the data reported through these applications, and the potential for these applications to be useful in certain conditions where monitoring and recording vehicle or pedestrian movement is needed. To analyze the reliability of the applications, three of the more popular and widely used tracking programs were downloaded to three different smart phones to represent a good spectrum of operating platforms.

Tire disablement events can cause a drag force that slows a vehicle. In this study, the magnitude of the deceleration was measured for different phases of 29 high speed tire tread separation and air loss tests. These deceleration rates can assist in reconstructing the speed of a vehicle involved in an accident following a tire disablement.

When the visibility of an object or person in the roadway from a driver’s perspective is an issue, the potential effect of moonlight is sometimes questioned. To assess this potential effect, methods typically used to quantify visibility were performed during conditions with no moon and with a full moon. In the full moon condition, measurements were collected from initial moon rise until the moon reached peak azimuth. Baseline ambient light measurements of illumination at the test surface were measured in both no moon and full moon scenarios. Additionally, a vehicle with activated low beam headlamps was positioned in the testing area and the change in illumination at two locations forward of the vehicle was recorded at thirty-minute intervals as the moon rose to the highest position in the sky. Also, two separate luminance readings were recorded during the test intervals, one location 75 feet in front and to the left of the vehicle, and another 150 feet forward of the vehicle.

Calculating the speed of a yawing and braked vehicle often requires an estimate of the vehicle deceleration. During a steering induced yaw, the rotational velocity of the vehicle will typically be small enough that it will not make up a significant portion of the vehicle’s energy. However, when a yaw is impact induced and the resulting yaw velocity is high, the rotational component of the vehicle’s kinetic energy can be significant relative to the translational component. In such cases, the rotational velocity can have a meaningful effect on the deceleration, since there is additional energy that needs dissipated and since the vehicle tires can travel a substantially different distance than the vehicle center of gravity. In addition to the effects of rotational energy on the deceleration, high yaw velocities can also cause steering angles to develop at the front tires. This too can affect the deceleration since it will influence the slip angles at the front tires.

This paper introduces a method for calculating vehicle speed and uncertainty range in speed from video footage. The method considers uncertainty in two areas; the uncertainty in locating the vehicle’s position and the uncertainty in time interval between them. An abacus style timing light was built to determine the frame time and uncertainty of time between frames of three different cameras. The first camera had a constant frame rate, the second camera had minor frame rate variability and the third had more significant frame rate variability. Video of an instrumented vehicle traveling at different, but known, speeds was recorded by all three cameras. Photogrammetry was conducted to determine a best fit for the vehicle positions. Deviation from that best fit position that still produced an acceptable range was also explored. Video metadata reported by iNPUT-ACE and Mediainfo was incorporated into the study.

This paper presents yaw testing of vehicles with tread removed from tires at various locations. A 2004 Chevrolet Malibu and a 2003 Ford Expedition were included in the test series. The vehicles were accelerated up to speed and a large steering input was made to induce yaw. Speed at the beginning of the tire mark evidence varied between 33 mph and 73 mph. Both vehicles were instrumented to record over the ground speed, steering angle, yaw angle and in some tests, wheel speeds. The tire marks on the roadway were surveyed and photographed. The Critical Speed Formula has long been used by accident reconstructionists for estimating a vehicle’s speed at the beginning of yaw tire marks. The method has been validated by previous researchers to calculate the speed of a vehicle with four intact tires. This research extends the Critical Speed Formula to include yawing vehicles following a tread detachment event.

Tire mark striations are discussed often in the literature pertaining to accident reconstruction. The discussions in the literature contain many consistencies, but also contain disagreements. In this article, the literature is first summarized, and then the differences in the mechanism in which striations are deposited and interpretation of this evidence are explored. In previous work, it was demonstrated that the specific characteristics of tire mark striations offer a glimpse into the steering and driving actions of the driver. An equation was developed that relates longitudinal tire slip (braking) to the angle of tire mark striations [1]. The longitudinal slip equation was derived from the classic equation for tire slip and also geometrically. In this study, the equation for longitudinal slip is re-derived from equations that model tire forces.

Previous work demonstrated that the orientation of tire mark striations can be used to infer the braking actions of the driver [1]. An equation that related tire mark striation angle to longitudinal tire slip, the mathematical definition of braking, was presented. This equation can be used to quantify the driver’s braking input based on the physical evidence. Braking input levels will affect the speed of a yawing vehicle and quantifying the amount of braking can increase the accuracy of a speed analysis. When using this technique in practice, it is helpful to understand the sensitivity and uncertainties of the equation. The sensitivity and uncertainty of the equation are explored and presented in this study. The results help to formulate guidelines for the practical application of the method and expected accuracy under specified conditions. A case study is included that demonstrates the analysis of tire mark striations deposited during a real-world accident.

There have been several papers published over the past 25 years regarding the acceleration of heavy trucks, including different loading conditions, drivetrain configurations, and driving techniques. The papers provide a large data set that measures the speed, distance, and time of the vehicles during acceleration testing and present the data in tabular or graphical formats. Although the data as presented can be useful, it can be challenging to pore over all the data to determine the correct set for a specific application in accident reconstruction. As of this paper’s date of publication, there are approximately eight relevant papers with a total of 268 acceleration tests performed, spanning many years. This paper reviews all the available published literature and summarizes the relevant data in a comprehensive list of accelerations for different heavy truck configurations, which provides a valuable resource to the accident reconstruction field.

Several sources report simple equations for calculating the lean angle required for a motorcycle and rider to traverse a curved path at a particular speed. These equations utilize several assumptions that reconstructionists using them should consider. First, they assume that the motorcycle is traveling a steady speed. Second, they assume that the motorcycle and its rider lean to the same lean angle. Finally, they assume that the motorcycle tires have no width, such that the portion of the tires contacting the roadway does not change or move as the motorcycle and rider lean. This study reports physical testing that the authors conducted with motorcycles traversing curved paths to examine the net effect of these assumptions on the accuracy of the basic formulas for motorcycle lean angle. We concluded that the basic lean angle formulas consistently underestimate the lean angle of the motorcycle as it traverses a particular curved path.

This paper presents a methodology for generating video realistic computer simulated rain, and the effect rain has on driver visibility. Rain was considered under three different rain rates, light, moderate and heavy, and in nighttime and daytime conditions. The techniques and methodologies presented in this publication rely on techniques of video tracking and projection mapping that have been previous published. Neale et al. [2004, 2016], showed how processes of video tracking can convert two-dimensional image data from video images into three-dimensional scaled computer-generated environments. Further, Neale et al. [2013,2016] demonstrated that video projection mapping, when combined with video tracking, enables the production of video realistic simulated environments, where videographic and photographic baseline footage is combined with three-dimensional computer geometry.

In 2016, Virtual Reality (VR) equipment entered the mainstream scientific, medical, and entertainment industries. It became both affordable and available to the public market in the form of some of the technologies earliest successful headset: the Oculus Rift™ and HTC Vive™. While new equipment continues to emerge, at the time these headsets came equipped with a 100° field of view screen that allows a viewer a seamless 360° environment to experience that is non-linear in the sense that the viewer can chose where they look and for how long. The fundamental differences, however, between the conventional form of visualizations like computer animations and graphics and VR are subtle. A VR environment can be understood as a series of two-dimensional images, stitched together to be a seamless single 360° image. In this respect, it is only the number of images the viewer sees at one time that separates a conventional visualization from a VR experience.