A Rational Approach to the Regulation of Truck Performance 700663
The premise of this paper is that the commonly heard proposals for regulating maximum gross loads of heavy commercial vehicles either do not reflect actual performance potential or are not practical to apply. A refinement of the gross weight per unit horsepower method is proposed in which the average horsepower available over the operating range of the engine would be substituted for any instantaneous value of power. This modification offers the advantage of reflecting the benefit of increases in the number of gear reduction steps and tends to compensate for differences in horsepower versus engine speed characteristics.