It is intended to analyse heavy-freight vehicle accidents paying special consideration to tank-truck accidents with the help of the DAIMLER-BENZ driving simulator in Berlin. After the interpretation of accident statistics the characteristics of freight- and tank-vehicle accidents were formulated by "characteristic accident patterns". On the basis of these patterns real accidents could be evaluated and some typical accidents (single-vehicle-accident, frontal- and front/rear- collision) were chosen for our intended profound simulator analysis.

A comparison between tank-truck and heavy-freight vehicle accidents shows a 50% higher participation of tank-trucks in front/rear collisions on motorways as well as in single-vehicle accidents and in frontal collisions on the highways ("Bundesstraße, Landstraße"). It is assumed that "liquid sloshing" could be one of the causal factors of such tank-truck accidents. The interaction between liquid sloshing and the accident characteristics of tank-trucks shall be investigated with the help of the driving simulator. A real-time analysis of liquid sloshing demands a simple, yet precise mathematical description. A mechanical model (pendulum-analogy and spring-mass system) for the simulation of combined transversal and longitudinal liquid sloshing of tank trucks is propesed;​ and the equations of motion are presented.