Vehicle Velocity Relation to Slipping Trajectory Change: An Option for Traffic Accident Reconstruction

Abstract

In this paper, the relation of the velocity of a vehicle in the slip mode to the parameters of the tire marks on the road surface is examined. During traffic accident reconstructions, the initial velocity of a sideslipping vehicle is established according to the tire mark trajectory radius, and calculations highly depend on the directly measured parameters of the tire marks, in particular cases known as yaw marks. In this work, a developed and experimentally validated 14-degree-of-freedom mathematical model of a vehicle is used for an investigation of the relation between velocity and trajectories. The dependence of initial vehicle velocity on tire yaw mark length and trajectory radius was found as a characteristic relation. Hence, after approximation of the permanent slipping part by a polynomial, the parameters of the latter were related to vehicle velocity. The dependences were established by specific experimental tests and computer-aided simulation of the developed model.

Keywords

• vehicle velocity
• slipping trajectory
• vehicle model
• traffic accident
• yaw marks