Reliability Analysis of Vehicle Stability on Combined Horizontal and Vertical Alignments: Driving Safety Perspective
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 8
Abstract
A driver/vehicle/road closed loop dynamic simulation model considering three-dimensional (3D) alignment was established using Matlab/Simulink for reliability analysis of vehicle stability on the combined horizontal and vertical curve. Pavement friction and vehicle operating speed were considered as the random variables. The point-mass-model based performance function considering the failure model of skidding, vehicle dynamic simulation-based performance function considering the failure model of skidding, and vehicle dynamic simulation-based performance function considering the failure model of rollover were presented, respectively, according to crash types of vehicle occurring on the curve road. Monte Carlo sampling was used to solve reliability. Followed by a parametric study, the results show that the probability of skidding calculated by the vehicle dynamic simulation is larger than that by point-mass model; and the probability of failure decreases with increasing superelevation, while rises with increasing road slope. It indicates that the current horizontal curve design oversimplifies vehicle model, ignores vehicle transient responses, and separates the horizontal and vertical alignments, which could be adverse for vehicles navigating the curved road.
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Acknowledgments
This research is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant CMMI-0408390 and NSF CAREER Award CMMI-0644552, by the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Foundation under Grant PRF-44468-G9, by National Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 51050110143, by Huoyingdong Educational Foundation under Grant No. 114024, by Jiangsu Natural Science Foundation under Grant No. SBK200910046, by Jiangsu Postdoctoral Foundation under Grant No. 0901005C, by West Development Fund of Ministry of Communication of China and by Shanxi, Anhui and Shandong Departments of Transportations, to which the authors are very grateful.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139 • Issue 8 • August 2013
Pages: 804 - 813
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 7, 2012
Accepted: Mar 12, 2013
Published online: Mar 14, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2013
Discussion open until: Aug 14, 2013
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