Modelling fundamental diagrams according to different water film depths from the perspective of the dynamic hydraulic pressure

Sci Rep. 2020 Apr 16;10(1):6496. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-63381-1.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose enhanced fundamental diagrams based on different water film depths by considering the effects of hydroplaning using a physical method. Various factors are calculated to describe the total safe distance headway of main vehicle components. These factors include the driver reaction times, reaction distances, vehicle braking times, and vehicle braking distances corresponding to different water film depths. An excellent match is found between the computed braking distance, the braking time calculated using the proposed numerical model, and the results published in other papers. These calculations are performed to estimate the distance headway and quantitatively analyse the relationships between the speed, density, and water film depth. By using three road-specific parameters estimated by our proposed model, namely, the free-flow speed, jam density, and capacity flow, a link transmission model is developed to analyse the dynamic impact of the water film depth.