Wind effects on emergency vehicles

The paper presents the results of a study to define the wind speed limits and conditions beyond which fire and rescue vehicles should not be operated during a hurricane. For that purpose, reduced scale models of a typical fire truck, ambulance, and sports utility vehicle (SUV) were tested in a wind tunnel and surface pressures and overall forces were measured. For the fire truck wind tunnel tests, the pressure measurements at low yaw angles are compared with fullscale measurements on a real truck and the results are also compared to those from some numerical simulation, and give some confidence in the wind tunnel tests technique. Based on the results of the tests and the analyses, safe wind speeds are defined for the operation of these fire and rescue vehicles to prevent course deviation and overturning.