VEHICLE RIDE AND HANDLING DYNAMICS: THEORY INTO PRACTICE

This article summarises Dr Crolla's 1995 Automobile Division's Presidential Address on the theory and practice of vehicle dynamics. He pointed out that vehicle handling was not really studied seriously until the 1930s, and described the tremendous progress made since then. Aerospace control techniques began to make an important contribution in 1956, when they were introduced at an important 1956 meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Crolla advocates a combination of theory and pragmatism, and gives illustrative examples of the value of such a combination. For various subtle reasons, the fundamental features of suspension design can be captured in a single-wheel mathematical model. Design parameters can be used to tune under/oversteer balance, and their qualitative effects can be established from a simple model with two degrees of freedom. This analysis can be used as a foundation for more elaborate models. Two types of active system can benefit handling dynamics: (1) active suspension control; and (2) active steering control. Crolla also provided a useful table of available software packages for developing analytical techniques, and suggested a suitable approach to multibody system dynamics.

  • Availability:
  • Corporate Authors:

    Institution of Mechanical Engineers

    1 Birdcage Walk
    London SW1H 9JJ,   England 
  • Publication Date: 1995

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Pagination: p. 12-4
  • Serial:
    • AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEER
    • Volume: 20
    • Issue Number: 3
    • Publisher: Institution of Mechanical Engineers
    • ISSN: 0307-6490

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00711259
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
  • Files: ITRD
  • Created Date: Sep 20 1995 12:00AM