Analysis of bifurcation and stability for a tractor semi-trailer in planar motion

This paper is intended for bifurcation analysis of a nonlinear tractor semi-trailer vehicle model in planar motion and for investigating its stability under constant running conditions. Bifurcation analysis shows that bifurcation diagrams of a tractor semi-trailer are quite different from those of a single-unit vehicle. Some instability phenomena of the vehicle system such as jackknifing, sideslip, and spinning are explained by correlating them with the behaviour in the neighbourhood of unstable fixed points based on analysis of eigenvectors, phase trajectories, and status of lateral tyre force saturation. It is also found that yaw planar instability of a tractor semi-trailer is caused by lateral tyre force saturation of the tractor's rear axles and/or the trailer's axles. Moreover, the stability region in the state space is demarcated, and a stability index for evaluating size of the stability region in a feasible domain is proposed. Yaw stability under constant driving conditions is analysed by using the proposed stability index.