Measurement of the Inertial Properties of the Cabin of a Heavy Highway Vehicle

For mathematical modeling and analysis of vehicle dynamic performance, a variety of inertial properties are of significance. These include: mass; center of gravity location; yaw, pitch, and roll moments of inertia; and the location of the principal axes of inertia.

The large size of most commercial highway vehicles can lead to significant problems in determining, either by computations or by measurements, all of the inertial properties appearing in the mathematical description of a vehicle system. In this paper, new techniques in the measurements of the inertial properties of a cabin of a large commercial highway vehicle are developed and discussed. The specific testing techniques which are employed are extensively described. These measurement techniques are simple and inexpensive, but the resulting information may be of great value to the vehicle dynamics researchers.