Estimation of mass moments of inertia of automobile

The estimation of the values of moments of inertia of vehicles for the needs of accidents reconstruction is very important. Usually, because of the problem of costs, there is no possibility to measure these parameters on a special test rig (physical or torsional pendulum). So, it is justified to look for new methods which would allow to obtain the mass moments of inertia of automobile. Of course, estimation is always burdened with error, but somebody who uses a formula for calculation of moment of inertia should put in the results the range of error of estimated value. In this paper the authors presented their own formulas on the basis of which the values of moments of inertia are estimated. As the basis of their work, a set of measurement results of the moments were used. They were performed by NHTSA for passenger cars exploited in the USA mainly in the 80's and 90's. In used NHTSA database there were also the vehicles that had the identical body version as in Europe. The presented new formulas were obtained using the procedure which was based on Monte Carlo method. However, the Authors decided to propose different formulas for each moment of inertia. They require a certain number of vehicle data, for example mass and wheelbase of a vehicle.