REVIEW ARTICLE


Study on Tractor Semi-Trailer Roll Stability Control



Shuwen Zhou*, 1, Siqi Zhang2
2 School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China
3 Traffic & Mechanical Engineering School, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, China


© 2014 Zhou and Zhang

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China; Tel: +8624-83691095; E-mail: shwzhou@mail.neu.edu.cn


Abstract

The rollover accidents in the tractor semi-trailer are often fatal and many factors could cause the tractor semi-trailer rollover. In this paper, a rollover prevention control method was proposed based on real-time calculation of rollover index. The vehicle Center of Gravity (CG) height from the ground is an important parameter in the rollover index and it is estimated through lateral acceleration sensor and suspension deflection sensors. Comparing the rollover index with the preset threshold, the differential braking will be applied to corresponding wheels once the trigger conditions are met. A roll stability control simulation was performed on the dynamic model based on virtual prototyping. The results show that the rollover prevention control proposed in this paper can stabilize the tractor semi-trailer and prevent from rollover on high speed curve driving.

Keywords: Curve driving, differential braking, roll stability, tractor semi-trailer, Center of Gravity, Rollover index.