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Two new 4 X 4 drivetrain systems have been developed for highway tractors that are used to pull multiple trailer combinations. The first one is a 4 X 2 that automatically becomes a 4 X 4 when conditions exist that require 4 X 4 operation. The second one is a full-time 4 X 4 that proportions the drive torque 36% to the front axle and 64% to the rear axle. A unique front driving steering axle has also been developed that permits a 4 X 4 system to be installed in a standard 4 X 2 truck. There is no need to relocate any major components to make space available for a front driving steering axle.

Regulatory requirements in the European Union (EU) for off-road machines and road vehicles are different. Vehicles which transport passengers and goods, along with attached trailers, as well as road motorcycles must meet EEC type-approval requirements. All other types of self-propelled machines must meet the requirements of the Machinery Directive (Council Directive 98/37/EC), and the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directive (Council Directive 89/336/EEC) and possibly other directives. This includes such categories as agriculture and forestry machines, construction machines, industrial trucks and similar products. The various directives outline the different processes for demonstrating compliance with the EU requirements. The intent of this paper is to summarize a few of the requirements that are of interest to off-highway equipment manufacturers and to identify some sources of information about the regulatory requirements.

A computer simulation was developed to investigate the effect of wind on test track estimation of heavy truck fuel efficiency. Monte Carlo simulations were run for various wind conditions, both with and without gusts, and for two different vehicle aerodynamic configurations. The vehicle configurations chosen for this study are representative of typical Class 8 tractor trailers and use wind tunnel measured drag polars for performance computations. The baseline (control) case is representative of a modern streamlined tractor and conventional trailer. The comparison (test) case is the baseline case with the addition of a trailer drag reduction device (trailer skirt). The integrated drag coefficient, overall required power, total fuel consumption, and average rate of fuel consumption were calculated for a heavy truck on an oval test track to show the effect of wind on test results.

Improving driving safety and freeway capacity is an indispensable research issue for road vehicles, especially for tractor semi-trailers, which on the one hand exhibit unstable motion modes at high speeds due to their articulated configurations and undertake the largest part of freight transportation on freeways. Automatic driving is rated as the ultimate solution of vehicle safety since it can significantly reduce accidents resulting from human driver errors. Proposed in this paper is a gain-scheduled PID controller for automatic path-following of a tractor semi-trailer. The PID controller minimizes the vehicle's predicted lateral deviation and heading error with respect to the desired path at a preview point, and gains of the controller are scheduled with respect to vehicle speed.

Abstract Aiming to improve the handling performance of heavy tractor semi-trailer during turning or changing lanes at high speed, a hierarchical structure controller is proposed and a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test bench of the electronic pneumatic braking system is developed to validate the proposed controller. In the upper controller, a Kalman filter observer based on the heavy tractor semi-trailer dynamic model is used to estimate the yaw rates and sideslip angles of the tractor and trailer. Simultaneously, a sliding mode direct yaw moment controller is developed, which takes the estimated yaw rates and sideslip angles and the reference values calculated by the three-degrees-of-freedom dynamic model of the heavy tractor semi-trailer as the control inputs. In the lower controller, the additional yaw moments of tractor and trailer are transformed into corresponding wheel braking forces according to the current steering characteristics.

Taking a good longitudinal braking performance on flat and level road of tractor and semi-trailer combination as a target, in order to achieve an ideal braking force distribution among axles, while the vehicle deceleration is just depend on the driver's intention, not affected by the variation of semi-trailer mass, the paper proposes a model based vehicle mass identification and braking force distribution strategy. The strategy identifies the driver's braking intention via braking pedal, estimates semi-trailer's mass during the building process of braking pressure in brake chamber, distributes braking force among axles by using the estimated mass. And a double closed-loop regulation of the vehicle deceleration and utilization adhesion coefficient of each axle is presented, in order to eliminate the bad effect of mass estimation error, and enhance the robustness of the whole algorithm. A simulation is conducted by utilizing MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim.

The optimization of aerodynamic drag represents an important research area for the fuel consumption reduction of heavy duty commercial vehicles. Today's design of tractor-trailers is significantly influenced by legal conditions regarding the vehicle dimensions and the provision of a maximum transportation volume. These boundary conditions lead to brick-shaped trailer outer geometries, especially at the rear ends. That is the reason why the investigations of aerodynamic optimization of commercial vehicle trailers are predominantly restricted to detail measures up to now. The present publication treats the aerodynamic characteristics of general modifications on the outer contour of long-distance haulage trailers in regard of reducing the drag resistance and, thus, potentially also the fuel consumption in highway traffic. A new approach for the realization of a variable outer contour of trailers provides the possibility to adjust the rear end to an aerodynamically optimized shape.

This paper describes a practical and efficient approach for determining complete transient, as well as steady state response of tractor-trailer air brake systems by recording pushrod displacement and air brake service line pressure as a function to time. The test hardware utilizes easy to fabricate “clip on” transducers to measure pushrod stroke length. Data acquisition is via LABVIEW‚. All transducers are easy to temporarily affix to any tractor- trailer and require no alteration to the vehicle. A complete system check takes less time than manually measuring pushrod stroke as required under FMCSA. This system with one treadle application and release gives digital timing and displacement history of all brakes. Useful information includes: application and release profiles (pushrod velocity), shoe compliance upon seating and crack pressure release points for both tractor and trailer relay valves.

Recently safety systems for the commercial vehicle have been rapidly developed. However, we still have many problems in the vehicle stability and the braking performance. Especially, a commercial vehicle may meet a dangerous braking condition when the vehicle is lightly loaded or empty and when the road is wet or slippery. Under these conditions, the truck can spin out or the tractor can jackknife or the trailer can swing out. To design the air brake system for the commercial vehicle, since the air brake system has many design variables, there must have been intensive researches on a method how to prevent dynamic instability and how to maximize vehicle deceleration. In this study, mathematical models of the tractor-semitrailer and the air brake system including an ABS controller have been constructed for computer simulation. Also, simple examples are applied to show the usefulness of the program.

This paper studies the effect of different longitudinal load conditions, roundabout cross-sectional geometry, and different semi-truck pneumatic suspension systems on roll stability in roundabouts, which have become more and more popular in urban settings. Roundabouts are commonly designed in their size and form to accommodate articulated heavy vehicles (AHVs) by evaluating such affects as off-tracking. However, the effect of the roadway geometry in roundabouts on the roll dynamics of semi-tractors and trailers are equally important, along with their entry and exit configuration. , Because the effect of the roundabout on the dynamics of trucks is further removed from the immediate issues considered by roadway planner, at times they are not given as much consideration as other roadway design factors.

The paper focus on enhancing the braking safety and improving the braking performance of the tractor/trailer vehicle. A slip-rate-based braking force distribution algorithm is proposed for the electronic braking system of tractor/trailer combination vehicle. The algorithm controls the slip-rates of the tractor's rear wheels and the semi-trailer's wheels changing with the slip-rate of tractor's front wheels, making tractor's front wheels lock up ahead of the tractor's rear wheels and the semi-trailer's wheels. The algorithm protects the combination vehicle from jackknifing and swing, guaranteeing that the combination vehicle has better driving stability and steering capability. The algorithm can be tested by co-simulation with MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim software both on high adhesion and low adhesion roads.

Collision reconstruction often involves calculations and computer simulations, which require an estimation of the weights of the involved vehicles. Although weight data is readily available for automobiles and light trucks, there is limited data for heavy vehicles, such as tractor-semitrailers, straight trucks, and the wide variety of trailers and combinations that may be encountered on North American roads. Although manufacturers always provide the gross vehicle weight ratings (GVWR) for these vehicles, tare weights are often more difficult to find, and in-service loading levels are often unknown. The resulting large uncertainty in the weight of a given truck can often affect reconstruction results. In Canada, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario conducted a Commercial Vehicle Survey in 2012 that consisted of weight sampling over 45,000 heavy vehicles of various configurations.

This paper provides an overview of the different BOSCH Anti-Lock Braking Systems (ABS). Basically there are three types of ABS available providing a suitable design for the various types of single-axle and multiple-axle vehicles. A semitrailer for example can be equipped with a single-axle ABS, a truck, trailer or bus mostly with a 2-axle ABS and an articulated bus will be equipped with a 3-axle ABS. In order to comply with all requirements, and particularly to take into account the installation conditions imposed by the vehicle, BOSCH has 2 different types of pressure-modulation valve available, a single-channel and a dual-channel valve. With the different anti-lock systems discussed, BOSCH can equip the wide variety of vehicle types which range from volume-production vehicles to special-purpose vehicles.

This SAE Recommended Practice establishes the Antilock Brake System [ABS] sensor interface and envelope dimensions for standardizing the location of the ABS rings mounted on the inner end of spoke wheels, hubs and hub-rotor assemblies on the following axle designations. a FF b FL c FC d FH e L f R g U h W j N k P

This SAE Recommended Practice establishes the Antilock Brake System [ABS] sensor interface and envelope dimensions for standardizing the location of the ABS rings mounted on the inner end of spoke wheels, hubs and hub-rotor assemblies on the following axle designations. a FF b FL c FC d FH e L f R g U h W j N k P

This SAE Recommended Practice establishes the Antilock Brake System [ABS] sensor interface and envelope dimensions for standardizing the location of the ABS rings mounted on the inner end of the hub on the following axle designations. a FF b FL c L d R e U f W g N h P

A study was conducted to assess the status of the antilock brake system (ABS) malfunction warning system on in-service air-braked commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). Data from a total of approximately 1,000 CMVs were collected in California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington in August and September of 2004 by enforcement personnel who had been trained to inspect the ABS warning lamp. With four categories covering warning lamp system functionality; no lamp (including lamp could not be found), lamp inoperational (including covered up or bulb removed), lamp ON (thus indicating an active ABS system fault), or OK, a snapshot of the operational status of the ABS malfunction warning system was created for the CMV population checked. Results indicate that about one in six power units manufactured on or after March 1, 1997 showed some problem with their ABS warning lamp system. One in three trailers manufactured on or after March 1, 1998 showed a problem.

This SAE Recommended Practice establishes performance guidelines for the capacity of the air reservoir systems used on trucks, towing trucks, truck-tractors, trailers, and converter dollies, with GVWRs over 10 000 lb, designed to be used on the highway in commercial operations.

The larger the equipment for a specific job in the earth-moving field, the more quickly and efficiently that job can be done. Unfortunately, the very size and weight of many present units means that the transportation of them involves a ponderous task. If increased capacity could be obtained with no increase in gross vehicle weight, and with only negligible differences in dimensions, major progress could be made in the equipment field. Even if physical dimensions involved no problem, the weight and placement of such essentials as tires, wheels, brakes, drive chains and engines, all tend to limit the payload capacity of a given vehicle. Through the judicious use of aluminum alloys in proved applications, a 10 to 15 per cent increase in payload capacity can readily be achieved at no increase in gross vehicle weight. The aluminum applications referred to have been proved both in over-the-road and in off-highway service.

Durability tests of commercial vehicles are performed on road running uphill and downhill as well as on flat roads; these tests take very long time and have high costs. To lower test time and costs, it is proposed to accelerate the durability tests of commercial vehicles power trains by using a Towing Trailer with an electromagnetic (EM) brake, developed in Brazil, simulating uphill. This Trailer was already presented [1], [2] for cooling test simulation at 20 km/h on commercial vehicles up to 250 HP. In the cabin (cab) of the vehicle under test, there are the braking level control and a laptop, which receives wireless and registers the operational parameters of the Towing Trailer. The GPS in the truck cabin (cab) supply information such as time, speed, latitude and longitude allowing the control of the route.