Leeds Beckett

: The dimensions and weight of machines, structures, and components that need to be transported safely by road are growing constantly. One of the safest and most widely used transport systems on the road today due to their versatility and conﬁguration are modular trailers. These trailers have hydraulic pendulum axles that are that are attached in pairs to the rigid platform above. In turn, these modular trailers are subject to limitations on the load that each axle carries, the tipping angle, and the oil pressure of the suspension system in order to guarantee safe transport by road. Optimizing the conﬁguration of these modular trailers accurately and safely is a complex task. Factors to be considered include the load’s characteristics, the trailer’s mechanical properties, and road route conditions including the road’s slope and camber, precipitation and direction, and force of the wind. This paper presents a theoretical model that can be used for the optimal conﬁguration of hydraulic cylinder suspension of special transport by road using modular trailers. It considers the previously mentioned factors and guarantees the safe stability of road transport. The proposed model was validated experimentally by placing a nacelle wind turbine at different points within a modular trailer. The weight of the wind turbine was 42,500 kg and its dimensions were 5133 × 2650 × 2975 mm. Once the proposed model was validated, an optimization algorithm was employed to ﬁnd the optimal center of gravity for load, number of trailers, number of axles, oil pressures, and hydraulic conﬁguration. The optimization algorithm was based on the iterative and automatic testing of the proposed model for different positions on the trailer and different hydraulic conﬁgurations. The optimization algorithm was tested with a cylindrical tank that weighed 108,500 kg and had dimensions of 19,500 × 3200 × 2500 mm. The results showed that the proposed model and optimization algorithm could safely optimize the conﬁguration of the hydraulic suspension of modular trailers in special road transport, increase the accuracy and reliability of the calculation of the load conﬁguration, save time, simplify the calculation process, and be easily implemented. Crosswinds on exposed highways and bridges can cause difﬁculties in driving in tall and long vehicles and the risk of a serious accident. The force of the crosswind on a conventional truck–trailer in North America as it crosses a bridge was examined by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) The authors validated the model with experimental data that previous studies had provided The conclusion was that wind pressure can be sufﬁcient to overturn the truck–semitrailer at the wind speeds that were studied. This paper describes a novel theoretical model that can determine the stability of special transport. The proposed model determines the load on each axle, the tipping angle, and the suspension system’s oil pressure. It was based on modular trailers models that appear in the literature, as well as those in common use within the heavy transport sector [27]. The model was tested experimentally by a full scale test [28] in which oil pressure data and output from the model were compared. To conduct the test, a nacelle wind turbine that weighed 42,500 kg and was 5133 × 2650 × 2975 mm in length, width, and height, respectively, was placed at different points within a modular trailer. With the validated theoretical model, a proposed optimization algorithm is capable of determining the optimal CoG of the load, as well as the number of trailers, number of axles, oil pressures, and hydraulic conﬁguration. The theoretical model and optimization algorithm were tested with a cylindrical tank that weighed 108,500 kg and had dimensions of 19,500 × 3200 × 2500 mm. The results showed that the optimization algorithm could safely optimize the conﬁguration of the hydraulic suspension of modular trailers in special road transport, increase the accuracy and reliability of the calculation of the load conﬁguration, save time, simplify the calculation process, and be easily implemented. The theoretical model and the optimization algorithm proposed are able to (1) optimize safely the conﬁguration of modular trailers’ hydraulic suspension in special road transport, (2) improve the reliability and accuracy of load conﬁguration calculations, (3) saves time, (4) simplify the calculation process, and (5) be easily implemented.