Projects/UTC

U01 Enhanced Finite Element Analysis
Crash Model of Tractor: Trailers

Most of the barriers used on US Highways to mitigate the effect of run off road incidents were designed for use with passenger vehicles and not heavy vehicles. The objective of this project is to develop and enhance the computer models of a heavy vehicle (tractor trailer combination vehicle) that will be used in finite element design, analysis and evaluation of roadside infrastructure hardware.

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U04 Marine Containers on Chassis: Safety Issues

This project is to investigate safety related problems involving chassis used for transporting marine containers on US highways. In recent years, much concern has arisen regarding the safety implications of allegedly substandard container chassis maintenance and inspection practices. This recognition is reflected in the recent effort to pass federal legislation mandating more effective container chassis inspection

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U02 Heavy Vehicle Rollover Characterization

This project will increase the understanding of the interactions of vehicle load, tires, suspensions, vehicle types, vehicle stiffness (tractor and trailer), and roadway surfaces/tire interface on truck rollover events can contribute significantly to improving heavy truck safety. Such understanding can be applied to support the design and evaluation of new technologies such as wider axles, wider single tires, adaptive suspension systems, rollover warning systems, etc. It can also contribute to improving roadway design to minimize the potential for truck rollover stemming from vehicle-highway interactions, and can contribute to more effective regulation aimed at reducing truck rollovers

U05 Traffic Signal Safety

This project will develop new traffic signal control logic to improve the safety of heavy vehicles on high speed approaches to signalized intersections using wireless communication between a heavy vehicle and a roadside traffic signal controller. The project will build on the Trusted Truck^TM onboard computer system using the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) concept for deployment of communication technology between vehicles and roadside infrastructure. This technology for heavy vehicles can also be migrated to emergency responders

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U03 License Plate Recognition

This project will demonstrate the use of technology to enhance heavy vehicle monitoring and profiling to improve safety. The first objective is to test and implement a mobile heavy vehicle profiling technology to spot speeding, stolen, suspicious and substandard trucks at strategic locations. The second objective is to demonstrate a deployment scheme of the system without overtaxing local authorities

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U06 Trusted Truck 2

Trusted Truck and Heavy Vehicle Inspection Station Automation

This project builds on prior work to instrument a heavy tractor trailer with sensors on critical vehicle safety systems and transmitting that data to an inspection station to support the US DOT goal of developing a capability of wireless truck inspections to enhance highway safety

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