Risk assessment for crosswind stability of vehicles on exposed sites

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a reliable evaluation for the crosswind stability of different road vehicles in a realistic physical scenario. Unlike existing approaches, we analyze the wind-vehicle system by probabilistic methods. The aerodynamic coefficients together with the gust parameters are considered as random variables. In addition, on-site measured wind data are used to calibrate the gust model. As the excitation of the vehicle is a stochastic process, risk analyses have to be carried out and failure probabilities are computed. Based on the failure probabilities, guidelines for speed limitations or traffic restrictions can be developed. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)