ABSTRACT
Nowadays the articulated heavy vehicles play an economically important role in the transportation process, and their numbers have been increasing for several decades. In the military field, the demand of transporting combat equipment that are characterized by unconventional weights and dimensions, necessitates using unconventional transporters. The payload parameters effect on the dynamic performance of heavy articulated vehicles is of a prime of interest.
In this paper parametric study is carried out to investigate the effect of payload parameters (density, and C.G height) during different low and high-speed maneuvers using yaw/roll model, which is developed by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, UMTRI.
The study shows that there may exist two loading cases that having equal payload weight but with different densities and accordingly different C.G. heights. In the case of higher C.G., the dynamic rollover stability and yaw stability are reduced. Accordingly regulation laws must limit the C.G. height as with the limitation on axle loads, (i.e. axle load only is not enough limit).