Citation

Quinn BE, Hildebrand SE. Highw. Res. Rec. 1973; 471: 62-75.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1973, National Research Council (U.S.A.), Highway Research Board)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The roughness of a pavement influences the steering behavior of a vehicle by producing variations in the normal forces between the tires and the pavement that in turn effect the lateral forces needed to control the vehicle. A simple mathematical model of a passenger car is used to compute the position of the car relative to set of axes fixed in the pavement as the vehicle executes different maneuvers. Pavement roughness is introduced indirectly by using, as inputs to the model, the actual normal tire forces that were measured experimentally on a smooth and a rough pavement. For vehicle paths having large radii of curvature and for low vehicle velocities, the lateral forces required to control the vehicle are relatively small. Under these conditions pavement roughness is relatively unimportant. For vehicle paths having small radii of curvature and for high vehicle velocities, the required lateral forces can be quite high. Developing these forces may not be possible if the pavement is too rough, and this can cause loss of control of the vehicle. Such a condition may exist on a rough road when an overtaking vehicle changes lanes at a high velocity to pass a slower vehicle and then is suddenly forced to return to the original driving lane because of oncoming traffic. Safe vehicle handling can thus be adversely influenced by pavement roughness.

Record URL:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/hrr/1973/471/471-006.pdf

Language: en

Keywords

MATHEMATICAL MODELS; ROADS AND STREETS; HIGHWAY ENGINEERING; VEHICLES - Steering