Combined Hill Descent Braking Strategy for Heavy Truck in the Featured-Slope

The continuous braking for the brake drum will cause the brake thermal decay when the heavy truck is driving down the long slope in the mountain areas. It reduces the heavy truck’s braking performance and the braking safety. The engine braking and the hydraulic retarder braking both consume the kinetic energy of the heavy truck and can assist the truck driving in the mountain areas. This research proposes a combined hill descent braking strategy for heavy truck based on the recorded information of the slopes to ensure the braking safety of the heavy truck. The vehicle dynamic model and the brake drum temperature rising model are established to analyze the drum’s temperature variation during the downhill progress of the heavy truck. Then based on the slope information, the combined braking temperature variation is analyzed considering the characteristics of the engine braking, the drum braking and the hydraulic retarder braking. The research result shows that the brake drum’s temperature decreases by 69.9°C and reaches 193.1°C after the heavy truck goes down the chosen slope with the combined braking strategy. The brake thermal decay of the brake drum could be avoided and the brake safety could be ensured after using the combined hill descent braking strategy.