Vehicle Stability and Control Research for U.S. Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight (TS&W) Study

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Comprehensive TS&W Study addressed the safety impacts of potential changes to TS&W limits from two perspectives: (1) the assessment of crash information and exposure data (vehicle miles traveled), and (2) the evaluation of stability and control performance of several truck configurations in terms of static roll stability, rearward amplification, and load transfer ratio. This paper addresses the analytical approach used to evaluate safety impacts from the latter perspective. The vehicle performance measures were estimated using simulation models. Several vehicle parameters were varied in a large parametric analysis for use in the study.