Acceleration rate

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Poman30
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Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2012 3:14 pm
First Name: Steve
Last Name: Lebrun

Acceleration rate

Post by Poman30 »

Hello,

I had a crash that involved a motorcycle and an empty 53 foot tractor trailer. The tractor trailer was stopped at a stop sign and pulled out. The truck made it across the travel lane approximately 75% of the truck had cleared when a motorcycle struck the trailer. The operator of the motorcycle suffered serious leg injuries as a result of this crash. Does anyone have acceleration rates for a Volvo tractor pulling an empty 53 foot trailer.

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seanhaight
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Joined: Fri Apr 29, 2011 2:28 am
First Name: Sean
Last Name: Haight
Location: San Francisco Bay Area

Re: Acceleration rate

Post by seanhaight »

Steve,

There was a good article in Collision (http://www.collisionpublishing.com) called: "Determining A "Best Effort" Heavy Truck Acceleration Rate Based On Time, Weight & Distance" in which the authors tested the acceleration rates of different heavy trucks (at different weights) from a stop.

The issue can be found here: http://collisionpublishing.com/issues/v ... ssue2.html

From the paper, for trucks below 30,000 lbs, the 'average g' acceleration was between 0.10 and 0.14 (depending on the distance). The rest of the weights can be found in the paper. You should probably read the whole thing to understand how they did the testing. I'm sure others will have some additional resources as well. I do not think that the authors used a Volvo specifically however. Hope it helps.
Sean Haight, PhD

CrashForum.info
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Engineer, ACTAR #2769
Editor, Collision Publishing

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