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What Is Intermodal Freight Transport?
Published in Lowe FCILT David, Intermodal Freight Transport, 2006
For readers unfamiliar with the technicalities of road vehicles, an articulated vehicle is one comprising a towing vehicle, correctly called the tractive unit, but often referred to as the cab or towing unit or incorrectly as the tractor unit, and a load-carrying trailer, the semi-trailer. They are hitched together with the front end of the semi-trailer superimposed on the rear of the tractive unit (transferring at least 20 per cent of the weight of the load carried by the semi-trailer onto the drawing vehicle, to meet legal requirements), being attached by means of a kingpin on the semi-trailer engaging in a ‘fifth-wheel’ turntable on the tractive unit. When detached from the tractive unit a semi-trailer is supported on forward-mounted landing legs (or landing gear) that are raised or folded away for travel.
On nonlinear model predictive direct yaw moment control for trailer sway mitigation
Published in Vehicle System Dynamics, 2023
Martino De Bernardis, Gabriele Rini, Francesco Bottiglione, Ahu Ece Hartavi, Aldo Sorniotti
A few studies compare actuation solutions located on the towing vehicle, the trailer, or both. One of the main conclusions is that if the dynamic coupling between the towing vehicle and trailer is weak, then a leading unit based controller may not be effective to suppress violent trailer oscillations in critical conditions [16]. However, this does not have general validity. For example, Abroshan et al. [17] present a model predictive controller (MPC) for the yaw stabilisation of an articulated vehicle capable of differential braking actuated either on the trailer or the tractor, where the latter – for the specific vehicle – is the more effective solution. This outcome is confirmed by Zhang et al. [18], who propose a reconfigurable MPC architecture for articulated vehicle stabilisation, which is tested on an electrified car–trailer combination capable of multiple direct yaw moment generation options. In [19] Wang et al. highlight the benefits of the concurrent control of tractor and trailer, with respect to the control of the individual units, by applying a proportional integral derivative (PID) direct yaw moment controller to a single-track articulated vehicle model.
Multi-axle/articulated bus dynamics modeling: a reconfigurable approach
Published in Vehicle System Dynamics, 2018
Yubiao Zhang, Amir Khajepour, Yanjun Huang
In Figure 7, the articulated vehicle dynamics can be described by a 6-DOF system, the tractor unit has the freedom to go forward, sideslip, yaw, and roll, while the trailer has the freedom to yaw relative to the tractor and to roll.