The Effect of Vehicle and Road Conditions on Rollover of Commercial Heavy Vehicles during Cornering: A Simulation Approach

Nurzaki Ikhsan,Ahmad Saifizul,Rahizar Ramli

doi:10.3390/su13116337

Nurzaki Ikhsan, Ahmad Saifizul + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116337

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Abstract

Heavy vehicles make up a relatively small percentage of traffic volume on Malaysian roads compared to other vehicle types. However, heavy vehicles have been reported to be involved in 30,000–40,000 accidents yearly and caused significantly more fatalities. Rollover accidents may also incur cargo damages and cause environmental or human disasters for vehicles that carry hazardous cargos if these contents are spilled. Thus, in this paper, a comprehensive study was conducted to investigate the effects of vehicle and road conditions on rollover of commercial heavy vehicles during cornering at curved road sections. Vehicle conditions include the heavy vehicle class (based on the axle number and vehicle type), speed and gross vehicle weight, while road conditions include the cornering radius and coefficient of friction values. In order to reduce the risks involved in usage of actual heavy vehicles in crash experiments, a simulation approach using a multi-body vehicle dynamic software was applied in this study, where the verified virtual heavy vehicle model was simulated and the output results were extracted and analyzed. The results showed that a maximum of 40% and a minimum of 23% from the total number of simulations resulted in an unsafe condition (indicated as failed) during the simulations. From the unsafe conditions, two types of rollover accidents could be identified, which were un-tripped and tripped rollovers. The heavy vehicle speed was also found to have a strong correlation to the lateral acceleration (to cause a rollover), followed by gross vehicle weight, coefficient of friction and cornering radius, respectively.

Highlights

Many developing countries including Malaysia have shown rapid growth in the past decades, in the industrial sectors and infrastructure developments
Different types of heavy vehicles generated a different amount of simulation data due to the different maximum number of gross vehicle weights (GVW) sets, as, the higher the maximum GVW, the more simulation data would be generated for the same speed, coefficient of friction and cornering radius
This study has demonstrated the application of multibody dynamics software in investigating the effects of vehicle conditions and road conditions that can influence rollover of heavy vehicles during maneuvering on a curved road section

Summary

Introduction

Many developing countries including Malaysia have shown rapid growth in the past decades, in the industrial sectors and infrastructure developments. Association [1], an average of 60,000 new vehicles are registered in Malaysia every year, with the total number of new vehicles of 604,287 in 2019 These include various types of land vehicles, ranging from passenger cars to commercial vehicles, such as trucks, prime movers, pick-ups, panel vans and buses. This in turn adds up to the traffic composition on Malaysian roads, where 24.57% of traffic was contributed by heavy vehicles, such as light lorries (14.21%), medium lorries (6.29%) and heavy lorries (4.07%) [2]. Heavy vehicles have been reported to be involved in 30,000–40,000 accidents yearly and caused significantly more fatalities than cars [2]. The study by Karim et al revealed that more than 10% of the fatalities occurred in accidents involving heavy vehicles were caused

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