Race Car Dynamics and Data Acquisition Seminar by Claude Roulle

Written by Lee Comerford

University of Manchester Racing Team Project Leader

A copy of the book to accompany these notes can be found in the FS Workshop. Please do not remove
it from there. Together, they cover a brief introduction to:

1. Tyre forces Page 3

2. Suspension kinematics Page 8
3. Dynamics and steady state weight transfer Page 12
4. Dampers, ride and transient weight transfers Page 13
5. Organising the work See book
6. Measuring and comparing performance See book
7. Car set-up See book

INTRODUCTION (pages 1-13)

Race car performance is about maintaining the maximum possible acceleration at every position on the
track in the appropriate direction. It is not only about lateral acceleration, but longitudinal and vertical
acceleration too. The acceleration of a race car is often referred to in terms of g.

All forces (apart from aerodynamic) are generated at the tyre-ground contact patch. A car turns by
generating grip forces at the tyres. The more grip that is available, the more lateral acceleration the car
can achieve.

So what are the parameters that allow the car to get maximum grip/ lateral acceleration?

Tyre friction (maximum in the y-direction and minimum in the x-direction)

Optimum tyre slip angle
Steering geometry including the Ackerman geometry
Front & Rear weight transfers
Track
COG height
Roll stiffness
Camber
Tyre pressure and temperature
Damper settings
Total weight (sprung :unsprung)
K & C (kinematics and compliance)
Road surface and temperature
Humidity

A car is in transient around 99% of the time; only the remaining 1% consists of steady-state behaviour.
Steady state means no dynamic change in any of the cars parameters. Take the skidpan event at the
competition as an example. The driver is constantly adjusting the steering wheel and as a result, weight
shift and so grip; steering angle and so slip angle are constantly changing.

What makes a car turn?

On the entrance of a corner, a car must develop grip at the front first. More grip must be developed on
the front outside tyre so that the front turns into the corner first (and the car does not under steer). In
order to develop more grip there must be more weight on the front (and there is only so much weight to
go around since we do not benefit from down force in FS). So, weight from the rear must transfer to the
front and this happens via a rolling moment of the chassis. The process is very simply termed weight
transfer.

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Now that there is more car weight at the front than at the rear and more grip is developed at the front
than at the rear, a yaw moment (in the x-y plane) results (see Equation 2). Maximum lateral g is
reached somewhere at the midpoint of the corner and then de-yawing takes place coming out of the
corner as the car straightens. Note that the yaw axis is not centrally down the car and a slip angle sensor
is required to find it accurately. Lateral acceleration is given by Equation 1.

Lateral g = longitudinal velocity/ r2 Equation 1

In FS the three key concerns are:

• The static sprung and unsprung weights.
• Weight transfers during unsteady cornering and so the vertical load or weight FZ on each tyre.
• The change in the vertical load ∆FZ which incorporates the spring and damper set-up,
damping in the tyres and even in the chassis.

Why is the change in vertical load so important?

As an example, a tyre was subject to a 30 slip angle (where the tyre max is 50), a constant temperature
and wheel vertical movement of 10Hz. It was shown that a 3mm road disturbance loses 30% of the tyre
grip.

This is why it is impossible to assume steady state conditions and illustrates the importance of effective
damping. It is possible to measure the wheel frequency by installing an accelerometer on the upright; it
should be approximately 20Hz.

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 1. TYRE FORCES (page 14)

The softer the tyres, the better the car can be engineered. There are only two problems with soft tyres.
Firstly, they wear down quicker and secondly, drivers tend not to like them – a ‘spongy’ feel results.
All tyres in FS are too stiff. There is not yet a brand that manufactures a carcass soft enough for the
application. Also, there is no time to warm the tyres up at the competition.

Tyres have forces acting on them in the vertical (from static weight, vertical vibrations of both the sprung
and unsprung mass and from vertical acceleration), longitudinal (from inline acceleration and rolling
resistance) and laterally (from lateral g) directions. To measure tyre forces, strain gauges are connected
to the suspension components.

Grip = FZ x Lateral g Equation 2

The grip ratio front and rear of the car should be the same as the static weight ratio.

Consider the forces acting on the tyres in a corner. Use P21 and take moments about the COG:
..
(FyLF + FYRF)a – (FyLR + FyRR)b = Yaw angle x Torque = IZCOGθ Equation 3

Equation 3 states that the difference in grip forces at the front and the rear of the car about the COG
result in a yaw moment. Note that in steady state the RHS of this equation is = 0 and the front and rear
grip balance.

The moment of inertia of the car in yaw IZ that is on the RHS of Equation 3 is extremely important. As
inertia reduces, response improves (the car turns quicker) however stability worsens (the car will be
more difficult to control). IZ is affected predominantly by the wheel base. You can imagine that a car with
a short wheelbase e.g a go-cart will corner much quicker than a Formula Ford. Ideally, the car would
have a short WB (low IZ) for short corners but a large wheelbase (high IZ) for long corners. Since the FS
track is very tight we should run with the smallest WB that the rules permit and we do.

Also, one would actually prefer a smaller inertia on the front of the car so that it turns into the corner and
out of the corner first and the static weight distribution will determine this. Section 3 in the book details
how to measure a cars IZ.

With the existence of the yaw moment, it follows that the front and rear of the car do not reach maximum
lateral g at the same time. So, we require separate accelerometers at the front and rear of the car; see
Figure 1.

LatG

b a

time

Figure 1

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 How do you measure the yaw acceleration?
.
It is not possible to measure the yaw acceleration but it is possible to measure the yaw velocity (θ) using
a Gyro. The technique is to install a Gyro in the. car (as close to the COG as possible), tackle a corner
and calculate the longitudinal velocity from: V = θR. If R remains constant and the angular velocity output
is attained from the Gyro and stored by data acquisition at regular intervals then a graph of V against t
can be plotted and differentiated to find the longitudinal acceleration. This is equal to the yaw
acceleration multiplied by the radius. The yaw acceleration will be maximum at the entrance and exit of
the corner but steady through the middle so this is the only point where steady state can be assumed
(see P239).

Friction coefficients (page 23)

Longitudinal grip FX = µx x FZ and lateral grip Fy = µY x FZ Equation 4

From Equation 2 and 4 it is clear that the lateral g at each tyre is effectively the coefficient of friction that
exists there. It is in fact true that the average of the four tyres coefficient of friction is the cars lateral
acceleration at the COG measured in g. The friction coefficient can be very different at each tyre due to
camber and the ply design

Even without the suspension taken into account, each tyre’s vertical, longitudinal, lateral and torsional
flexibility and damping influence the cars response. For example:

• The car frequency in yaw

• The tyre response time to steering wheel input
• The cars lateral stiffness

With a perfectly rigid chassis the roll at the front of the car is the same as the roll at the rear and the total
roll = suspension roll+ tyre roll. For example:
Front 0.20 + 0.80
Rear 0.80 + 0.20
This difference creates an egg of potential deformation on the chassis.

The tyre can be modelled as four springs, each having stiffness and damping due to:

1. Vertical load

Vertical deflection of the tyre can account for 50% of a cars ride height variation and limits deformation in
the other axis. Any suspension kinematic models must account for this deflection. As an example, 50%
anti-dive would only change the RC height by 25%. The vertical stiffness of the tyre changes with:
• Pressure
• The rim stiffness (this should be measured)
• Speed

Vertical tyre deflection is also caused by lateral deflection as a result of Poisson’s ratio effect. An
accelerometer on the upright will give the amplitude of vertical tyre deflection

2. Lateral grip

3. Traction force

In longitudinal weight transfer the tyre contact patch moves, changing the wheelbase. This can cause up
to 7% error in steady-state calculations.

4. Torsion torque

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More tyre deflection is desirable because more grip is produced, however it happens slower. There
exists a compromise between grip and transient. 1.5g in 5s is better than 1g in 1s because the car can
turn quicker. This is another illustration of why we cannot design in steady state where you would aim for
the maximum lateral g rather than the one that you can obtain in the quickest time.

Slip Ratio (page 34)

The contact patch longitudinal speed and the vehicle longitudinal speed could be very different due to
wheel spin and movement of the contact patch relative to the wheel. The slip ratio is defined as:
Sr = (wheel longitudinal speed – contact patch longitudinal speed)/ wheel longitudinal speed x 100
It can be calculated from wheel sensors through data acquisition.
For maximum traction the car needs to be at the ideal slip ratio at all times. Another important
consideration is the time taken to get to that point.

This point can be determined by plotting inline acceleration against slip ratio and colouring the graph in
speed. Then, plot throttle speed against throttle position. Compare to a speed against distance graph
and one can show the ideal slip ratio for acceleration. It is never too soon to put your foot on the
accelerator pedal (to get to the ideal slip ratio). This is why left-foot braking is favoured.

The goal is to be
SR in this part of the
graph as long as
possible

Figure 2

The ideal slip ratio will change with longitudinal speed and also with the tyres age.

Vertical load effect on contact patch surface (page 44)

The increase in contact patch area is not linear with vertical load. Weight transfer is BAD because we
lose more grip from the inside wheel than we gain from the outside wheel in cornering. This is why anti-
roll bars, a large track and a low COG are used to limit it. Having said this, we need weight transfer to
get grip and ultimately corner!
Weight Transfer

Lateral g Grip

So although weight transfer is a bad thing, it is a bad thing that needs to happen so should happen as
quickly as possible. In FS we want low moment of inertias in roll, yaw and pitch to ensure this is the
case.

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 Slip angle (page 47)

The slip angle is the angle between the expected direction and real direction of the tyre. The slip angle of
the tyre is the same as the rim angle only when there is no tyre deformation, making it very difficult to
measure. It is possible to calculate the rim angle by knowing the steering angle (from the steering angle
sensor) and tackling a corner slowly i.e. at 00 tyre slip angle. The tyre slip angle can only be measured
using slip angle sensors and these are extremely expensive.

Toe can be used to speed up the time taken to reach the ideal slip angle. For example, if the rear
accelerometer is reading a much lower magnitude than the front accelerometer, the driver will likely
complain of over steer (because the rear tyres are not generating enough lateral grip). Put a small
amount of toe-in on each rear wheel to increase lateral grip sooner (for the skid pan we could have toe-in
on only one rear wheel). As with weight transfer, you lose on the inside tyre because that will take longer
to reach its optimum slip angle but the effect on the outer tyre is much greater. Also, recall that it is often
difficult to raise the temperature of FS tyres to a sufficient level. Well, although running with toe-in
increases rolling resistance, the artificial slip angle also creates a tyre-heating effect.
So, increasing toe-in can increase car lateral acceleration, but this depends on which side of the ideal
slip angle you are on (Figure 3) and the way to determine this is to consider the temperature of the tyres.
The data acquisition system must incorporate tyre temperature sensors. We require 13, three on each
tyre and one always looking at the ground. Rear tyre temperatures will tend to be hotter due to the rear
wheel drive configuration. From the data, plot Fy against slip angle and Fy against tyre temperature.

Ideal temperature/
Fy Optimum slip angle

Slip angle/
Temperature

Figure 3

Note that Fy x velocity = Watts. Consider the specific heat capacity of the tyre rubber.
The stiffer the tyre, the higher the temperature since the tyre stores the energy produced by force x
distance.

An important consideration with oversteer is the location of it in relation to the turning radius. If it is on the
entrance of the corner then the cause is too-low a slip angle. Toe-in will always help. If it is at the middle
of the corner then toe-out is required because the tyre is turning too far past its ideal slip angle. Again, it
depends on which side of the ideal slip angle the tyre is at. The cause may also be that the tyres are too
cold. Remember that the sum of the grip on the four wheels must be equal to the load on the car. One
needs to consider both the slip angle AND grip to define understeer and oversteer (see the table on
page 64). Rather than just static toe, bump steer can be employed to control toe at different vertical
loads.

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 What is meant by a more forgiving tyre?

Fy
A B

Slip angle
Figure 4

Tyre A is a stiffer tyre than tyre B. Tyre A is more responsive because the optimum slip angle is reached
sooner in the turn than tyre B. However the slower deformation of tyre B means that it is more forgiving,
in that a larger drop in slip angle results in a relatively smaller loss of grip. Tyre B is better for FS.

Camber (page 86)

Camber is the angle between the wheel and vertical axis. It is negative when the top of the wheel is
oriented to the inner of the car.

When the car turns and weight is shifted, the outside wheel will naturally gain positive camber and the
inside negative camber because the wheels roll as well as the chassis body. Although camber actually
reduces the contact area patch size, negative camber allows a car to corner at higher lateral g. To
address this, cars often run with static negative camber.

When a car corners, the outside wheel is pulled straight or even better remains in negative camber but
the inside wheel becomes more negative and loses grip. This is in addition to the loss from the weight
transfer itself.

From the graphs on page 90 it can also be seen that the more camber that is developed, the larger the
slip angle that is required to develop the same lateral force. This is why toe out on the inside wheel can
cancel out the effects of negative camber gain when cornering because the tyre is moved closer to its
ideal slip angle.
We have now seen advantages of running with toe in (closer to the ideal slip angle on the outside wheel)
and toe out (combats the effects of negative camber gain on the inside wheel) at the front of the car!

Fy

camber

Slip angle
toe-out
Figure 5

The perfect situation (page 96)

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There are 6 conditions for the perfect situation.

1. The front/rear lateral grip distribution is equal to the weight distribution.

2. The front and rear slip angles are close to being equal.
3,4,5,6. Each tyre operates at its ideal slip angle.

A few notes on braking

The distribution of braking (which should be measured) will often show a large scatter because:

1. The brake-balance can lock-up.

2. The piston stroke is different on the front and the rear which changes the angle of the balance as
you push the pedal down.

Really, the brake balance should adjust in cornering for different left and right distribution as well as front
and rear. This could be achieved by a mechanical link from the steering column.

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 2. KINEMATICS

Why is it important to have a low unsprung mass?

Road irregularities send a force: F = ma where m = the unsprung mass into the chassis through the
shock. Therefore, a lower mass will result in a lower disruption to the chassis, causing less chassis roll.
A lower inertia also means that the wheel and tyre will return to its original position quicker so helping to
maintain grip after a disturbance.

Chassis Roll

Roll is a rotation about the x-axis. It is the rates of this roll rather than the absolute magnitudes that is so
important – this is what is felt by the driver.

Reaction
Action Bump
Springs Anti roll bar Damper Inertia
rubber
Roll (degrees) Sprung
mass
lateral G YES YES YES
∆Z COG to
RC.
Roll speed Any
(degrees/sec) variation of YES YES YES YES
the above
Roll Any
acceleration variation of YES YES YES YES YES
(degrees/sec2) the above

Roll Centre (page 117)

The chassis roll centre is the point in the vertical plane at which transverse forces can be applied to the
sprung mass without kinematics roll occurring. The body therefore rolls about this point.
Body roll occurs as a consequence of the relative position of the suspended mass COG versus the roll
centre.

The distance between the RC and sprung mass COG is critical. A higher RC is effectively a stiffer anti-
roll bar. It follows that the lower the roll centre, the more roll that occurs in a corner. The moment of
inertia varies with the SQUARE of the distance between them. The lower this inertia, the higher the
response but the less the stability (this applies exactly as it did in yaw in previous conversation). When
there is less roll, the energy must go somewhere and this is primarily the wishbones but also the tyres
through lateral fluctuations. Because it is difficult to heat FS tyres up it may be better to have a higher
RC (even though this reduces stability in weight shift) because the bottom of the wheel moves outward
rather than the top of the wheel inward in bump causing this warming effect. If the RC was placed higher
we would require more compliant tyres in roll, particularly in the side walls. Another advantage would be
the quicker response in tight cornering.

A cause of understeer may be less chassis roll on the front of the car than on the rear. This results in not
enough weight being shifted from the front inside wheel to the outside wheel and so less grip being
generated. If the front grip is not larger than the rear then no yaw moment will be produced. Lowering
the front roll centre to persuade more roll can solve this problem.

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 Camber

∆CR = roll angle

VSAL = ∞

VSAL = track/2 ∆CR = 00

When the virtual swing arm length (VSAL) is infinity, all camber is from roll but there is no camber
variation in heave. When it is the track/2 then the camber gain in roll is zero. Ideally, one wants the IC far
away for straights (where road irregularities causes heave) but that moves in when the car begins to roll.
This way, the tyre camber values stay as close to the static values you set as possible. A shorter top
wishbone gives more horizontal tangent and so an IC that moves quicker. The technique is to determine
the RC position that is desirable from the amount of camber that is wanted and this can only be found
through the tyre data (or tyre temperature sensors). The graph on page 127 can help to select an
appropriate VSAL from the amount of camber gain that it results in.

Pitch Centre

Pitch Centre movement is just as important, if not more than RC movement, since FS cars develop more
inline g than lateral g. If the front and rear tracks are different one needs to work in 3D when considering
the side geometry. Also, the geometry lines should be drawn through the knuckle points, rather than the
pick-up points because it is the wheel motion relative to the chassis that is of concern.
Pitch centre movement is very similar to roll centre movement but here anti-dive and anti-squat geometry
can be employed to limit weight transfer.

3D Kinematics

The 3D instant roll axis of the front and rear suspended mass may not align. They must align through the
suspension travel (not just in static) otherwise the chassis will be twisted. So, deal with the cause (and
align them) or the effect (build a very stiff chassis). As well as this, it is normally assumed that the front
and rear COG heights are the same when in fact they can be very different.
The method is to divide the car into 10 ‘slices’, each slice having a COG, stiffness and damping. Build a
jig to measure the car (and use 10 linear potentiometers). Measure damping and the natural frequency
of each section by releasing the chassis from a displacement.

The effects of caster and KPI (page 139)

With caster and KPI = 00, turning the wheels creates a cylinder. When caster and KPI angles are built
into the system, turning the wheels creates a cone. The inside wheel is pushed into the ground and the
outside wheel is raised off the ground. This has an anti-weight transfer effect. They are also used to
increase camber gain in steering and can increase the aligning torque substantially so make it more
difficult to turn, but provide more driver feedback.
The correct combination of them can affect the tyre contact patch in such a way to increase camber gain
but not affect the steering difficulty.
Camber variations in steering = fn(Caster angle)
Steering stiffness = fn(Cater trail)
As a general rule, if you increase caster by 50% you increase camber gain by three times that.
10
 Steering

The steering geometry is a function of the tyre curve as on page 109. Pro or reverse Ackerman geometry
depends on whether the ideal slip angle increases or decreases for increasing lateral force for the
particular tyre. Once this is determined the exact geometry can be found by plotting the lateral load on
the inside and outside tyres against slip angle as in Figure 3. How much more or less slip angle is
required on the outside wheel compared to the inside to get to the optimum slip angle of both? This will
determine the steering angles.

Toe in is better for slow corners and toe out is better for fast corners. The solution is toe-out with reverse
Ackerman geometry because you do not lose out on any wheel. With reverse Ackerman, the outside
wheel turns more than inside wheel. The inside wheel is closer to its ideal slip angle and turns less and
the outside wheel is further from its ideal slip angle but turns more.

In addition to this the steering speed is important because it is rarely constant. For a go-kart, there is
more steering speed in the first 300 to get to the ideal slip angle giving more grip to apply the yaw torque
and turn quicker. This measurement can be achieved by plotting steering speed against steering angle
from a steering wheel sensor.

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 3. DYNAMICS AND STEADY STATE WEIGHT TRANSFERS

Finding the COG and Moment of inertias (page 154)

Tilting the car in the pitch plane is a very inaccurate method of finding the COG height. It should be tilted
in the roll plane, supported at its balance point and the angle measured using a digital protractor. Some
tips:

Use a girny to stop tyre deflection.

Use a spacer on the rear wheel to account for the smaller track.
Do not use any sort of support when the measurement is taken (only hold manually).
Replace shocks with a rigid attachment.

It is ok to assume that the unsprung COG is at the centre of the wheel.

We must know the moment of inertias of the car in the pitch, roll and yaw planes.

Motion Ratio

Motion Ratio MR = wheel movement/ shock movement and is determined by the geometry in the bell
crank set-up. A motion ratio less than one is desirable to give easier control of wheel movement.

Wheel rate = spring rate/ (MR2) Equation 5

Lateral weight transfer (page 177)

There are 6 types of lateral weight transfer.

1. Front non-suspended weight transfer.

2. Rear non-suspended weight transfer.
3. Front geometric weight transfer.
4. Front elastic weight transfer.
5. Rear geometric weight transfer.
6. Rear elastic weight transfer

Page 183 explains that the suspended elastic weight transfer is acted only through the springs (since it is
the moment about the RC) whereas the geometric weight transfer is acted through the wishbones
(because it is the moment about the floor). If the RC was half way between the suspended mass COG
and ground then 50% of the weight transfer would be accounted for by geometric and 50% by elastic.
This should be taken account of in RC height selection.

In a corner, there will be a large amount of geometric weight transfer at the entrance and exit but more
elastic weight transfer in the middle section when chassis roll is greater.

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 DAMPERS, RIDE AND TRANSIENT WEIGHT TRANSFERS

Shocks (page 211)

F1 cars employ flextures in place of the traditional coil-over shocks and there are several reasons for
this:.

A. First of all, the load is distributed unevenly because the top of the helix spring is not flat. This
causes the rod to contact the seal, affecting the stiffness and damping.

This can be helped by inserting a thrust washer at the top end of contact with the spring.

B. The rod has a tendency to bend when under load.

This can be limited by shortening the shaft down to as short a length as possible.

C. Bump rubber. Although tiny disturbances, they occur at a very fast rate and are felt strongly by
the driver.

D. If a spring drops out, roll can increase dramatically because one side only supports the chassis.

Use a droop-limiter.

Rod-ends also create stiction and Cornell University published a paper on the measurement of this.

A standard damper unit has high and low speed damping. The low speed is an adjustable needle and
the high-speed built-in shims.

A stiffer spring will produce a higher frequency and less RC movement. Softer springs take longer to
deform and return.

The shock speeds are very important and can be modelled using Shock Speed Histograms (page 282).
It is not critical that the front and rear roll magnitudes are the same, it is more important that the roll
speeds are similar. For example:

If rear roll is occurring after front roll there are two possibilities using the shock speeds to address the
problem:

i) Delaying the time to the maximum front roll which can be achieved by stiffening the front
shocks.
ii) Advancing the time to the maximum rear roll which can be achieved by softening the rear
shocks.

The same is true in pitch.

How do you select the perfect shock?

1 k
Use the equation: f = Equation 6
2π M
Where k is given by Equation 5 and M is the unsuspended mass per corner, f is the ride frequency and
should be around 1.1Hz at the front and 1.2Hz at the rear.

The critical damping C is given by C = 4kM

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Set up the shocks like this:

Front Bump

1/3 of 0.7C
2/3 of 0.7C
X
Rebound speed Bump speed
X
3/2 of 0.7C

3/4 of 0.7C

Rear Bump

Where X = 100 – 150mm/s

Anti-roll bars

Most loading of anti-roll bars is when the car is in transient. Any play in any joints can lead to a very bad
frequency response. It is not the magnitude of the response that is important but the rate of change that
is felt by the driver. This is why it is important to always use bearings at rotational joints.

CONCLUSION

Data acquisition channels should be added with the following priority:

1. Safety and reliability first: water temperature, oil temperature, RPM, brake pressure, battery
voltage, gearbox temperature.
2. Driver channels: throttle position, steering position.
3. Engineer channels: Tyre temperature sensors, potentiometers, accelerometers, Gyro, etc

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