The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: Rotating Vehicles Drag Factor

Ed Livesay (elivesay@alltel.net)
Fri, 21 Mar 1997 10:05:20 -0500 (EST)

Hey guys... the approach of plotting a spinning vehicle's c.o.m. over several
points along its deceleration path can be handled in the "Speed From Skid" module
(algorithm #4) of my freeware called CAC (your free copy is available at
http://www.alltel.net/~elivesay

The (almost certainly superior) approach described by Brian employing a much
more sophisticated SMAC-type software (simulation) can be accomplished via the
FREE but complicated software called "CarSim Educational" available at
http://www.umtri.umich.edu/erd_soft/erd_soft.html

The quaint and simple algorithm employed in my CAC software has been compared
to EDSMAC simulation results with acceptable results but the CAC tends to be a
reasonable but useable estimate only (typically as much as about 5% off) in
comparison to the SMAC runs.

I agree that, should the resources be available, the power of a PC today is just
waiting for appropriate software to more efficiently solve such problems. The
more modern softwares/machines coming out (like McHenry's very nice package,
Engineering Dynamic's 3D-HVE stuff, and McEnnis Engineering's product) are the
wave of the future complete with scene photo underlays and consideration of
vehicular suspension,etc.... Current softwares (i.e., EDSMAC, etc,) typically
consider only 2-dimensional dynamics but provide reasonable results.

Now if the new stuff would only evolve to an AFFORDABLE alternative for the
majority of the reconstruction community..............

scene-photo overlapping
Ed Livesay
elivesay@alltel.net

NOTE: You are reading in an archived session of ARnews. It is possible that this topic is still being discussed. To see if this topic is still active, or of there were any more recent posts on this topic, check later archives of ARnews.

If there is no current post, and you would like to add to this topic, link to the Current ARnews Discussion and begin a new thread. Be sure that if you are starting a new post that the thread title does not contain the abbreviation RE: Placing RE: at the beginning of a new post will confuse Hypermail and prevent others from answering your post in the future.

For example, to continue this discussion look for a thread titled

Rotating Vehicles Drag Factor

If this thread does not exist in the current archive, you can begin another one by using that title.