Field assessment of horizontal accelerations using air ride suspension trailers

Abstract

Current laboratory tests designed to evaluate package and unit load systems focus strictly on the intensity of vertical orientation. However, due to an increased demand for source reduction and the light-weighting of packaging components, unit loads are becoming more susceptible to the horizontal forces encountered during transport.Understanding the field measured acceleration levels is critical to developing accurate laboratory test simulations to examine unit load rigidity. This paper uses horizontal acceleration data collected from two air ride suspension trailers to quantify the rise times and steady-state accelerations levels experienced by the vehicles in the longitudinal (braking) and lateral directions. These characteristics are essential in establishing test methods that accurately reflect field measured events. The results show that the rise times experienced by larger transport trailers are longer than previous reports using smaller trailers. The larger transport vehicles from the present study showed lower decelerations and accelerations in braking and lateral moving events, respectively, compared to smaller transport vehicles. Regardless of travel direction, the deceleration and acceleration levels are right-skewed, with most of the events falling below 0.33 g.

Measurement and analysis of low‐acceleration and long‐duration longitudinal events using delivery van

“…The statistical mean of the average values for the braking and acceleration manoeuvres were 0.25 and 0.28 g, respectively. These mean values again align with previous researches performed by Dunno and Ge,13,20 who reported an average acceleration of 0.29 g from the straight delivery box truck, and Nolot et al, 21 who reported average accelerations ranging from 0.27 to 0.33 g. This average is lower than the EUMOS or ISO test protocols, which use target thresholds of 0.8 and 1.0 g. However, if only the maximum average acceleration values from this study are considered, even then the data do not correlate with the recommended test conditions.…”

Measuring and Assessing Long‐Duration Impacts for Truck and Trailer

“…Overall, the intersection and roundabouts have larger lateral acceleration and duration than that of other two categories; 95% of the lateral acceleration during turnings ranged from 0.24 to 0.36 g for the truck and 0.21 to 0.35 g for the trailer (Figure 17). These values align closely with the range of 0.30 to 0.42 g reported in previous studies [9,10]. The mean lateral acceleration for the truck and trailer in this study ranged from 0.15 to 0.18 g and 0.13 to 0.18 g, respectively.…”

“…It is worth noting that only three instances, representing 0.16% of all braking events, exceeded 0.40 g, which aligns with Klusmeyer et al's report indicating that only 0.11% of brake deceleration events surpassed 0.4 g [5]. For the trailer trips, the maximum longitudinal acceleration during braking was 0.36 g, while during accelerations, it was 0.34 g. These values were lower than the range of 0.42-0.46 g reported in an earlier study [9,10].…”

“…Regarding the highest turning longitudinal accelerations in Table 4, both the truck and trailer exhibited a range of 0.35-0.38 g. These values were lower than the reported range of 0.42-0.52 g in a prior study [9,10]. Comparing the rise time to duration, it can be observed that maximum peak accelerations occurred at different points within the entire duration, indicating significant variations in waveform shapes.…”

“…The averaged lateral acceleration for the aforementioned vehicles was 0.34, 0.24 and 0.27 g, respectively. The range of rise time for 26 ft. straight truck, 42 ft. trailer and 53 ft. trailer were 1.01-2.06 s [9,10]. Böröcz et al extended these studies focusing on longitudinal acceleration and reported that truck's averaged longitudinal deceleration and acceleration was 0.25 and 0.29 g, respectively [11].…”