Research on roll stability of articulated engineering vehicles based on dynamic lateral transfer load

A 16-degree-of-freedom non-linear roll dynamic model is developed for an articulated engineering vehicle considering non-linear road excitations and non-linear characteristics of vehicle structures. In addition, a variable step-size numerical method is proposed to solve the non-linear dynamic model. The proposed numerical method can improve the calculation accuracy and the computational stability. Through the proposed dynamic model, an equation is derived considering time-varying tire load characteristics to reflect the roll stability of an articulated engineering vehicle. Using the proposed roll stability equation, the driving stability can be effectively evaluated for an articulated engineering vehicle with different system parameters. The analysis results show that the roll stability decreases significantly with the increase in vehicle speed, centroid height of engineering vehicle, or lateral slope angle. The influence of vehicle speed and lateral slope angle on roll stability is greater than that of the centroid height of engineering vehicle. When steering on the road with a lateral slope angle, the roll angle and the lateral load transfer ratio curves fluctuate with time. As the lateral slope angle increases, the fluctuation is stronger. Overall, the proposed model can accurately evaluate the roll stability of a driving articulated engineering vehicle and accurately determine the unstable tilting of an articulated engineering vehicle.