Measurement of Heavy Vehicle Impact Forces and Inertia Properties

摘要

The research presented in the report designed and constructed an instrumented wall which is capable of measuring the impact forces associated with heavy vehicle impacts. The design of the instrumented wall was based on an earlier wall developed to measure the impact forces associated with lighter vehicles. The wall consists of four concrete segments which are supported on low friction teflon pads and instrumented with load cells and accelerometers. The instrumented wall was used to measure the impact forces associated with a variety of vehicles including a full-size automobile, two pickups, two Chevrolet Suburbans, an intercity bus, a single-unit truck, and three tractor-trailer rigs. In addition to the direct measurement of the impact forces associated with the various vehicles, an approximate technique was developed which allows the impact force to be estimated using the results of onboard vehicle accelerometers. Results from the approximate analysis compare favorably with the results from the instrumented wall.