Characterization of Urban Bus Acceleration Cycles for Fatigue Analysis with a Portable Low-Cost Acquisition System

Abstract

The fatigue design of bus structures is directly dependent on the loads that the vehicle will support throughout its lifespan. The determination of such operational loads, obtained in form of accelerations through vehicle sensing, is usually done with proprietary and expensive acquisition systems. In this paper, a low-cost acquisition system is presented and studied, which is designed, calibrated, and oriented for this purpose, based on an Arduino UNO and a low-cost accelerometer. The acquisitions are adapted to obtain the operational loads of several urban bus lines in the city of Madrid. The obtained data is later processed in order to characterize the acceleration cycles in these structures, which can be used as an input for the appropriate structural design. As a result, it is proved that the low-cost acquisition system is adequate and provides a simple and cheap way to characterize the acceleration of these vehicles during ordinary service.