Driving risk of road vehicle shielded by bridge tower under strong crosswind

Moving on a bridge, a road vehicle will experience a gusty crosswind caused by the shielding effects of the bridge tower. The corresponding driving safety is affected by several uncertain factors. In this study, a closed-loop driver-vehicle-crosswind (DVC) model is established to obtain the dynamic responses of the vehicle under given driving conditions. The nonlinear tire cornering force, the real driver behavior and the vehicle aerodynamic loads considering the wind shielding effects of the bridge tower can be taken into account. Based on the support vector classifier approach, a probability-based procedure is established to assess the driving risk of a road vehicle passing by a bridge tower under crosswind. A typical two-axle road vehicle passing by a bridge tower is studied as a numerical case. The dynamic responses of the vehicle and driver reaction under two given driving conditions are analyzed by solving the DVC numerical model firstly. Then, the probability-based model is used to assess the driving risk of the vehicle under different driving conditions; the effects of vehicle speed, wind velocity and friction coefficient of road surface on the driving risk are investigated.