A motional rollercoaster
Racecar’s wizard of sim does the maths to help explain one of the trickiest vehicle dynamics properties of them all – non-linear motion ratios
One of the most difficult things you will ever deal with in racecar vehicle dynamics is non-linear motion ratios. With linear motion ratios, calculating what the car will do in terms of load transfer and pitch behaviour is easy. But when we move to non-linear motion ratios things become very messy, very quickly.
Fortunately there is a way through the jungle. Here I’m going to revise an article I did two years ago on this matter and fix up some mistakes and omissions. Since that time I’ve added some data acquisition channels to ChassisSim that will greatly aid in our understanding of what is going on with non-linear motion ratios. This will help put you in a position to make some very solid calls when it comes to these.
To understand what we are dealing with we have to go back to the fundamental core of how motion ratios tie into the forces on.
