Developing Guidelines for Enhancing Maneuverability of Long-Wheelbase Multi-Axle Road Trains with Semi-Trailers

The wide use of combination vehicles (road trains with trailers and semi-trailers) is driven by the need to transport heavy bulky cargo, while ensuring small specific pressure on support surface when the loading capacity and the travel speed of the vehicle increase. The efficiency of this type of transport depends on a combination of its properties that become apparent during operation. They determine the suitability of these vehicles for use in specified operating conditions. One of the most important properties of a road train is agility, i.e. the ability to make turns with a radius of curvature and overall width of the corridor determined by geometric characteristics of public-access roads. The aim of this work is to optimize the main geometrical parameters of long wheelbase multi-axle trucks at the design stage to increase vehicles’ maneuverability. Using the theory of functional analysis, it is established that to ensure the minimum value of the overall corridor when maneuvering, a long-wheelbase multi-axle road train having a semitrailer with all-wheel steering should meet two conditions. Firstly, the center of the rear axle of the semitrailer should move along the trajectory of the attachment point, while maintaining the maximum rotation angle of the internal (relative to the direction of rotation) driven wheel. Secondly, the vertical axis of the fifth-wheel coupling should pass through the pole of rotation on the longitudinal axis of the tractor.

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