Load standards for highway trucks or construction equipment

[werkstoff]

Can anyone point me to structural standards or codes used to define the loads on highway trucks or construction equipment? Do such structures fall in the class of 'bridge structures' vs. 'building structures' as used in the Aluminum Design Manual? Thanks.

ron

 

[JStephen]

You mean, the loads used to design the truck or equipment itself, right? That would fall under automotive engineering or mechanical engineering. Go peruse SAE's website at

http://www.sae.org,

for starters. I don't know that vehicles would fall under either category in the aluminum manuals. Be sure to check fatique issues as well, which would be more critical with a vehicle than with a structure.

I don't know that the loads in question are as "standardized" as you might think. You may find problems with proprietary information (or rather the lack of it).

 

[PEinc]

Talk to a highway engineer who should have AASHTO's Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges. This manual shows the various design truck loads and axle spacings that are used in highway bridge design.

 

[werkstoff]

Thanks for the replies on this question. But what I am looking for are loads on the truck, particularly loads that can be used to design the superstructure of the truck. I suspect there may be some MIL standards and there must be some commercial requirements. I need loads like, curving loads and vertical impact loads. My guess is that they are expressed in g's. Thanks in advance for any help.

ron

 

[JStephen]

Fortunately, I have never gotten involved with vehicle design in a serious way. It seems it would be a mess, especially starting from scratch.

For a normal over-the-road truck, the actual load carried should be no problem, as it's limited by legal loading. So assume it's a big chunk of iron in the middle of the trailer, and there's your load.

The problem arises in that at some point, you have to figure the maximum dynamic loading. IE, figure the biggest chug hole you'd ever hit, or hopping a curb at speed, or series of dips to match the natural frequency of the trailer or whatever you can come up with. Maybe this is specified and standardized somewhere; if so, that SAE site would be the place to start looking. Or it could be proprietary information, gleaned from years of experience at different vehicle manufacturers. Proper roll-over stability would be another issue.

I know you can just buy off-the-shelf wheel-and-axle sets for semi trailers. Perhaps you could come up with the maximum load they can handle, and work backwards from that.