Research progress on vehicle instability risk threshold and discriminant criteria under urban flooding condition

Abstract

[Objective] With the acceleration of urbanization and the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, urban flooding events are becoming more and more severe, and the risk of vehicle instability in waterlogged road sections is gradually increasing. The study of vehicle instability risk thresholds in waterlogged roads is of great theoretical significance and practical value for flood risk assessment and emergency management. [Methods] The research result on vehicle instability thresholds in flooded water from 1967 to 2024 are systematically summarized from experimental studies, theoretical analyses, and numerical simulations, and the advantages and disadvantages of basing on a single water depth/flow velocity, a combination of water depth and flow velocity, vehicle characteristics, and hydrodynamics as the existing vehicle instability discriminatory criteria are evaluated. [Results] Existing flume tests consider more limited influencing factors, less research on foot-scale tests and non-static vehicles, some theoretical analyses lack rate verification of data, and some hydrodynamic models in numerical simulations do not carry out parameter sensitivity analyses. The threshold value does not fully consider the vehicle conditions, driving conditions, road environment and other factors. The destabilization criterion mainly relies on vehicle dynamics parameters, which is somewhat empirical. [Conclusion] In the future, it is necessary to carry out multi-factor coupling research on different types of foot-size vehicles, and combined with numerical simulation, use machine learning algorithms to analyze the experimental datum, to improve the accuracy of the vehicle stability threshold model under flooding conditions, and to formulate vehicle safety standards. To provide a decision-making basis for the transportation department and the drainage system planning and construction departments.

Keywords

urban flooding / vehicle instability / risk threshold / discriminate criteria / climate change / rainfall / runoff / influence factors