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A Warm-Up Lap
Getting Up to Speed
Michael Schumachers Benetton-Ford and Damon Hills WilliamsRenault lead the field warming up for the 1994 Japan Grand Prix. Photo
by permission of Ford Motor Company.
Chapter 1
We warm things up by examining an F1 suspension design problem, splitting
it into several easy physics problems, and connecting each to the math that
produces the result. Then we establish some of the ground rules for science
and math.
Contents
1 Introduction2
2
7 Symbols11
7.1
Greek Letters12
8
9
9.1
11
12
1 Introduction
No matter how capable a race car is, you dont just hit the ignition and
race. The engine needs to warm up so the pistons can expand and fit
the cylinders right, and so the oil can thin out and lubricate right. Perhaps most important, the tires need to come up to temp to increase
their traction and avoid a spin at the first corner.
In the same way, if you go into a subject cold, it takes a while to get
up to speed. You wont get the most out of it without a little perspective. So lets warm up on a few concepts in physics and see how to
combine them. Dont worry that they havent been explained yet; well
develop each one in the coming chapters.
2 Predicting a Suspension
Pushrod Force
Formula 1 engineers are fanatical about reducing the weight of their
cars, even though there is a minimum weight regulation. By getting below the minimum weight, they can add ballast low in the car to lower
its center of gravity (the CG) and improve handling. In some years the
minimum has been so tight that the drivers were asked to lose weight,
to the point of losing muscle mass. Another obsession is with aerodynamics. Every ounce of drag becomes power wasted to push the car
through the air, when it could be accelerating the car instead.
Both of these factors drive the design of an F1 front suspension, as
in the 1997 Benetton B197 in F igure 1. The springs and shocks are
kept inside the bodywork to reduce drag, exposing only the pushrods
and control arms. Even then, if the suspension can be designed so the
pushrods see less force, they can be made thinner and lighter to further
reduce drag, as well as vehicle weight.
F rontal View
Tire/Wheel/Spindle
1000 lb
Push Rod
FPR
Torque
Arm
Torsion Bar
750 lb
500 lb
750 lb
Control Arm
Since the car is symmetric side-to-side, each front tire is the same distance from center. When traveling in a straight line, this means that the
upward forces on each tire are equal, so there is 750 lb pushing up on
each in order to total 1,500 lb.
Note 1: FYI, the symbol in the middle of the car means CG (center of
gravity), though it could have meant BMW.
Note 2:If a road pushing up on the tires seems odd, think of what
would happen if it didnt! Chapters 1617 cover support forces like this
in detail.
750 lb
Now look closer at the forces on one side of the front suspension,
shown on the right side of the figure. There are two horizontal control
arms attached to the spindle, as well as the pushrod, which is 30 up
from horizontal.3 This leaves only the pushrod to support the vertical
force, so it must balance the upward 750-lb force on the tire by itself
(were ignoring the wheel and tire weight).
The pushrod also has a hinged joint at each end. Because of this, the
force it carries, which well call FPR for force (in the) pushrod, can
only be directed along the line going through both joints (see F igure 3,
left). Any force that lies at an angle can be split into vertical and horizontal parts, to form a rectangle (F igure 3, right). The downward part
of the pushrod force must balance the upward force on the tire; the
downward force must be 750 lb.
1300 lb
30
FPR
750 lb
750 lb
750 lb
Knowing the pushrods angle and its vertical force component, we can
now find the force along the pushrod by drawing its force diagram to
scale (again, right side of F igure 3). The length of each of the sides
is proportional to the force in that direction, enabling you to scale the
unknown forces from the known ones. For instance, if the 750-lb force
line measures 1 inch on your diagram (750 pounds/inch), the diagonal
will measure 2 inches, so the diagonal force is 1,500 lb.
The pushrod force is found to be 1,500 pounds. If you follow a similar
process for all the possible racing conditions, and find the one producing the highest pushrod force, you can design the pushrod to withstand
it. This whole process could also be done mathematically, using techniques well develop.
Note 3: Note that the other end of the pushrod pushes on the torque
arm (right side of the figure) that twists the torsion bar, which acts as the
suspension spring. You are viewing the torsion bar end-on.
says the same thing as the physics. If you can imagine the situation
in the problem, you should be able to put it to math (just like putting
something to music). So dont just find the right equation and plug
numbers into it to find the answer; think through the physics of the situation to see how the equation describes it. Then it will stick with you.
As an example, lets calculate the downward force on a piston with a
4-inch bore when there is 500 psi (pounds per square inch) of pressure
in the cylinder. The pressure of 500 pounds per square inch literally
means there are 500 pounds of force pushing on each square inch of
the piston face. Here are the quantities well use in this problem:
B = bore (defined here as 4 inches)
A = area of the top face of the piston (unknown so far)
r = radius of the cylinder ( the bore)
= 3.1416 (pi, rounded to 4 decimal places)
F = force (unknown so far)
p = pressure (defined here as 500 psi)
On the left side of F igure 4, you see the top face of a piston that fits
in a cylinder of bore B. Since we need to find the area of the piston to
calculate the pressure force, lets do that first. We use the formula for
the area of a circle, which is A = p r2, or A = p r r, with p being about 3.1416 and r being the radius of the piston. Since the radius
of the cylinder is half the bore (you can see in the diagram that r is B
2), this becomes p (B 2)2. 6 Our 4-inch piston has a radius of 2
inches and so has an area of
A = (2 inches)(2 inches)
= 12.566 square inches
Stop and think for a minute about that piston area. Why does the area
depend on the square of the bore, B B? Its because when you increase the bore, the top surface of the piston gets wider in two directions (across the page and vertically on the page in F igure 4). If you
double the bore, the area is four times as big, not two times as big
(okay, that makes sense).
Note 6: Note that the formula shown in Figure 4 uses a fraction symbol
/ to signify division, rather than a sign. This is how division will
typically be shown.
Top View
Side View
A
Radius
Force
F
A
Area
Area
Pressure ( p)
Bore
A = r 2 = ( B/2) 2
F=pA
pounds
F = p A = 500
12.566 inch 2
2
inch
= 6, 280 pounds
So the 500 psi of pressure produces a total of 6,280 pounds on the top
face of the piston, which is a lot of force! Note that the formula for the
force produced by the pressure, F = p A, is something we can now
use in other situations, no matter what the pressure and area are.
When you put numbers into the formulas (usually equations), dont
think of them as just numbers. Think of them as measurements, or
sizes. So the higher the cylinder pressure or the larger the piston area,
the larger the force. This correctly suggests that a bigger bore (to get
a bigger area) or supercharging (to produce higher pressure) would
increase the piston force and the engine would produce more torque.7
If you take the small amount of extra time to think through the formulas
like this, you hardly have to memorize them. They come naturally from
the physical situation. Think physics first, math second.
a
F igure 5 A Ford GT40 with mass m
being accelerated by a net force F.
F
m
If you exert a net force F on the car as shown, it will accelerate (speed
up). Newtons second law of motion covers this situation, saying that
the force acting on a body is equal to the bodys mass m multiplied by
its acceleration a:
F = ma
This equation is only true if the correct units are used for m and a. This
will be detailed in Chapter 4.
The relationship between force and acceleration (in gs) for the GT40,
assuming it weighs 3,000 pounds, is shown in F igure 6. The difference
between a car's weight and its mass will be explained in Chapter 4. The
graph shows that a positive (forward) net force on the car produces a
positive (forward) acceleration, and that a negative force produces a
negative acceleration (as in braking). Furthermore, the acceleration
is directly proportional to the force. This plots as a nice straight line
(there is a linear relationship between the two). Newtons second law
is so general that we could keep increasing the force, either forward or
rearward, and it would still be linear.
Acceleration (g's)
1.50
1.00
Braking
0.50
0.00
0.50
Acceleration
1.00
1.50
4000
2000
Force (pounds)
2000
4000
Now lets look at Hookes law, which is used to calculate the force in a
compressed or stretched spring, such as the coil springs in a suspension
or a valvetrain:
FSpring = kx
Here, FSpring is the force produced by the spring, k is the spring stiffness,
and x is the distance the spring is compressed, as shown in F igure 7.
Note that the multiplication sign is left out in the equation, as will
usually be done. Again, correct units must be used for correct results.
FSpring
Force (pounds)
10,000
5,000
400 lb/inch
5,000
10,000
12
It is because past 4 inches of compression, the spring stiffens as it begins to bind (the coils are pushed into each other). Past 9 inches of
tension, the spring stiffens as it straightens out and becomes more of
a rod than a spring. The range where Hookes law holds, and the force
plots as a straight line, is called the linear range of the spring. But
Note 8: Note that tension (stretching) is plotted here as negative compression of the spring.
note that springs are sometimes designed to use the nonlinear range,
to limit travel.
KEY CONCEPT
Many laws in physics have limitations on when they can be used.
That doesnt make them useless; it just means you need to know
the limitations. Better yet, see if the limitations can be used to
your advantage.
FPR =
Here, sinq is the sine of the push rod angle q from horizontal. This short
formula is the mathematical summary of the thinking in the entire
problem, using the same assumptions. If you plug in the same 1,000lb aerodynamic force, 500-lb weight force, and 30 pushrod angle as
before, you will get the same 1,500-lb pushrod force.
Finding and saving this formula has its advantages. One is that you can
avoid a lot of work the next time you do a similar design. The other is
that you can program it into a computer (whether in a spreadsheet or
a program like MATLAB), have it calculate results for many pushrod
angles, and plot the results in a curve (as in F igure 9).
Section 7: Symbols 11
5,000
4,000
3,000
Design Angle
2,000
X
1,000
0
15
30
45
60
75
90
7 Symbols
To keep things clear, every major symbol will mean the same thing
throughout the book. For example, the symbol F will always represent
a force, and an r will always be the radius of a circle or arc. In situations with more than one force acting, well use subscripts to keep
them straight. So if you want to say that the weight of a stationary car
Note 9: If the angle were about 5 or less, the suspension would look a
lot like the mechanism in a pair of locking pliers, such as VISE-GRIPS.
is equal to the load on the front tires plus the load on the rear tires,
you could write that as
Note 10: I had to resort to using calculus in finding some other results,
but these calculations are also placed in Appendix 5, and calc isnt necessary to interpret the results.
Note 11: More likely THAY-duh in American English.
Being careful, you then check the micrometer by turning it to its closed
position, and it reads 0.012 inches (instead of zero).
Since the micrometer was reading low by 0.012 inches, the bar is actually 0.894 inches thick (0.882 inches + 0.012 inches). So the 0.9-inch
ruler measurement is too high by 0.006 inches, and we already know
the micrometer is low by 0.012 inches.
Now, is the ruler or the micrometer more accurate? Which is more
precise? The accuracy of a measurement says how correct the measurement is; how true it is. The measurement thats closest to the
actual value is the most accurate. The ruler was only off by 0.006
inches, while the micrometer was off by 0.012 inches. The ruler was
more accurate!
On the other hand, precision states how fine a measurement is:
how small a difference it can separate; how closely does it repeat?
The ruler only reads to the nearest tenth of an inch, while the micrometer reads to the nearest thousandth. The micrometer, with resolution of 0.001 inches, is much more precise than the ruler, which has
0.1-inch resolution.13
Note 13: In this case, the precision of the micrometer allowed us to recover its accuracy, once we subtracted the reading in its closed position.
Example
Problem
Statements
3,220 lb
Intermediate
Calculations
2.5834 lb
Results
2.58 lb
Significant Digits
Example
Problem
Statements
1,728 in3
Intermediate
Calculations
1.35583 ft
Results
1.356 ft
10.4 Rounding
The other part of reducing calculation errors is to round numbers correctly. The rule will be to round the last kept digit up if the following
digit is 5 through 9, or leave it as is if the following digit is 0 through
4. In a previous case, we rounded the value of 79,571 pounds to 3
significant digits. The fourth digit, a 7, is between 5 and 9, so the third
kept digit (the 5) is rounded up to 6, giving 79,600 pounds.
Note 14:Of course its also what makes cars so interesting and
challenging, because they contain so many systems that interact to
affect performance.
Note 15: In many cases, the spring and shock were completely inside
the bodywork, but in this case, the drivers feet get in the way (race drivers can be such an inconvenience).
The point of this comparison is that, unlike in the most basic physics,
designing a system lets you use your creativity. The March, the Lotus,
and the previous Benetton suspensions were all solutions to the same
problem, but done by different engineers, on different vehicles, and at
different times.
Today, the pushrod suspension has the best combination of wheel control, light weight, and aerodynamics. Certainly it works well with the
high nose of the 1997 Benetton and of current F1 cars. It is currently
used in other road racing series, and a couple of production cars. But
in the future, materials improvements and rules changes might make
another design superior.
These are just examples, but youll see the systems aspect come up
when we deal with problems like load transfer in acceleration and
cornering, energy storage in a vehicle, and power transfer through
a driveline.
established 1950
Automotive Reference
BentleyPublishers
.com
Chapters
1. A Warm-Up Lap
2. Kinematics Basics
3. Kinematics Applications
4. Dynamics Basics
5. Forces
6. Dynamics Applications
7. Torque, Force Resolution, and 2-D Vectors
8. Angular Dynamics Basics
9. Angular Dynamics Applications
10. Dynamics in a Plane Basics
11. Dynamics in a Plane Applications
12. Energy Basics
13. Energy Applications
14. Power Basics
15. Power Applications
16. Statics and Quasi-Statics Basics
17. Statics and Quasi-Statics Applications