The Experimental Study of the Air Flow Produced by Road Vehicles and Its Potential Destabilizing Effect on Nearby Pedestrians

This paper is from the SAE World Congress & Exhibition, held in April 2007 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Part of the Pedestrian Safety session, this paper reports on a study of the air movement produced by various types of road vehicles, in order to evaluate the potential of this air flow to destabilize nearby pedestrians. The study included six different vehicles, some as small as an automobile and others as large as a tractor-trailer combination, driven at speeds ranging from 20 to 50 mph (23 to 80 kph), at distances to sensors of two to six feet (0.6 to 1.8 m). For each combination of testing variables, the authors measured peak air speed, relative temporal gust occurrence, and settling time to ambient conditions. The authors describe their results and then discuss the interrelationship of these factors, particularly vehicle speed and the distance to the speed sensor, and the magnitude of the maximum air speed recorded. As might be anticipated, the vehicle-induced air speeds increased as vehicle speeds increased and as the sizes of the vehicles increased. For all tests and conditions, the maximum vehicle-induced air speed was measured to be 25.3 mph (40.7 kph), and that was observed during a test with a cab-over tractor attached to a semi-trailer.

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• Corporate Authors:

  Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)

  400 Commonwealth Drive
  Warrendale, PA  United States  15096
• Authors:
  • Strauss, Mark
  • Inendino, Louis
  • Carnahan, James
• Publication Date: 2007-4

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Pagination: v.p.
• Monograph Title: Pedestrian Safety

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aerodynamic force; Automobiles; Gusts; Heavy duty trucks; Light trucks; Pedestrian safety; Pedestrians; Roadside; Roadside hazards; Tractor trailer combinations; Trucks; Wind pressure
• Subject Areas: Highways; Motor Carriers; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I82: Accidents and Transport Infrastructure; I84: Personal Injuries; I90: Vehicles;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01084257
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780768019049
• Report/Paper Numbers: 2007-01-0758
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jan 10 2008 9:01AM