Lateral Dynamics of Commercial Vehicle Combinations A Literature Survey

SUMMARY

This paper presents a review of theoretical and experimental works relative to the handling performance of commercial vehicle combinations. A commercial vehicle combination (road train) is defined as a tractor unit and an arbitrary number of trailers. The review contains literature corresponding the most widely used types of trains: tractor-semitrailer, truck-trailer and tractor-semitrailer-semitrailer (doubles). The vehicle dynamic performance has been investigated taking into consideration the following features: directional performance, roll dynamics, braking performance and combined braking and directional performance. With the aim of evaluating the present state of research activities in the field of lateral dynamics of articulated commercial vehicles, the author has compiled some 250 references.