Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering (Jan 2018)

Trailer Overturning during Wood Transportation: an Experimental Investigation of Effects of Trailer Joint Point and Frame Structure

  • Angela Calvo,
  • Marco Manzone

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 39, no. 1
pp. 97 – 108

Abstract

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Trailers may increase the risk of tractor overturn during wood transportation in dangerous conditions. In this work, tests were carried to simulate a trailer rollover using three two wheel tractors and a crawler tractor and three trailers (two single-axle and one two-axle), all of their combinations moving downhill along the path on a short dirt road. The trailers were always loaded with the same load of logs cut at a length of about 1.5 m and put transversely to the longitudinal axis of the trailer. During each test, the following parameters were measured: the lateral dragging of the rear wheels/crawler of the tractor, the ground detachment of the rear upstream wheel/crawler and both the longitudinal and transversal strains (released over the tractor hooking system) produced by the trailer overturn. The study highlighted that the biaxle trailer structure with a turntable steering had the best performances compared to the single-axle in terms of safety during trailer overturning. Independently of the trailer type considered in this work, a tied load is more dangerous than a load restrained only by steel struts, because during the overturn the load forms a single unit with the trailer mass, which increases the transversal and longitudinal strain.