Presentations on Suspension Compliance Effects and How it Would Influence FSAE Cars.

[BillCobb]

Good points. My feeling is that once a few spindle and bearing sets are tested (you don't need a K&C machine to do this, just a fixture) a common stiffness
in camber and steer will address all the concerns. This generally works because the cars are just about the same weight, same loads, same architecture,
so bearing selection and spindle strength are probably pretty close in the field. Some makes, brands and assemblies will sort out as better than others, just like steering gears.


As for wheels, a set of gentle tests of the same tire at TIRF on all the wheels of a common rim diameter will show the cast of characters.
I'd rather see this than one more shot at a bunch of tires that will probably be close to previous tests.

And run camber sweeps instead of slip sweeps. That's where all the questions seem to be coming from. Too bad if your tire model fitting program pukes.

[DougMilliken]

...a set of gentle tests of the same tire at TIRF on all the wheels of a common rim diameter

That would be a job for the "wheel test consortium"!

As interesting as this test might be, we have enough trouble sourcing zero offset wheels for TTC testing as it is. With different offset wheels the test head has to be moved to re-center the tire on the belt/roadway and the cost (in time) is prohibitive for the TTC budget. TTC has saved many thousands of dollars by purchasing zero offset rims for our tests.

With that said, I completely agree that wheel compliance is worth a good look. As noted for spindle and bearing sets, a fixture to test wheel stiffness would be a good way to compare different wheel choices--bolt the wheel to a solid fixture and apply lateral loads at the rim, perhaps in a few different locations if the wheel has spokes.

[dynatune]

Hi Everyone,

Suspension Compliance and the effect of Suspension Compliance on Vehicle Dynamics Behavior is probably the most interesting part of the game. For the FSAE teams that
do want to consider Suspension Compliance at the initial design of geometry without going to hugely complex MBA tools DYNATUNE does provide a free 1 year FSAE license for
the Suspension Design Module which does consider Link Stiffness and does calculate immediately a table of the most important Compliant Metrics. You can read more here:
http://www.dynatune-xl.com/features-sdm.html