Citation

Brylev I, Evtiukov S, Evtiukov S. Transp. Res. Proc. 2018; 36: 84-89.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publications)

DOI

10.1016/j.trpro.2018.12.047

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The majority of countries in the world are experiencing the growing number of two-wheeled motor vehicles (motorcycles, L3 category vehicles etc.). In view of this, the number of victims and badly wounded persons is considerably increasing. Most part of road accidents is the result of certain circumstances which are forming the whole complex of causes and consequences. Determination of actual cause and contributary circumstances which occurred during the road accident is considered to be one of most important tasks regarding road traffic safety. Shortcomings commonly found in traditional methodology of calculating the motorcycle's "while braking" speed which was developed in 1960-s and is still being used in Russian Federation lie in the fact that motorcycle speed is calculated with reference to skid marks; as a result, calculated speed often becomes "under-estimated". Experience has shown that at the moment of brakes application actual speed of motorcycles is higher than estimated because experts are using the predeterminedly under-estimated, averaged values (i) of steady state deceleration and (ii) of steady state deceleration build-up time. Contact-trace coupling of volume-penetrating nature, i.e. collision (mostly of frontal-cross nature), is causing motorcycle wheel fork deformation which results in wheel-base change. This is accompanied by kinetic energy expenditure for motorcycle deformation (including opposite vehicle deformation) which factor is commonly neglected during collision speed calculation. Most part of kinetic energy contained in the vehicle prior to collision with the barrier is transformed into plastic strain energy while the minority thereof, due to rebound strain, is again transformed into kinetic energy whose reserve is causing the vehicle to be repelled from the barrier. Authors have analyzed experiments during which motorcycles were colliding with non-deformable barriers and scrutinized the problems which were occurring while calculating the speed of two-wheeled motor vehicles during road accident.

Language: en

Keywords

reconstruction of road accident mechanism; speed calculation; two-wheeled vehicles (TWV)