Behind The Performance Of A Vehicle's Chassis

A Vehicle's Chassis

When evaluating a car, we usually hear statements like "good handling" or "nice comfort". Then how to identify and test the so-called handling and comfort of a vehicle? Here we are going to talk about an important equipment called Kinematics & Compliance rack (K&C rack for short) and let it reveal the secrets behind the vehicle's performance.

The K&C rack can be as expensive as $3 million, because it can reveal the chassis movement in all conditions when the vehicle is quasi-static, while this could never be tested by human eyes. Then the engineer can exactly find out what happened when a car was on the traveling and subsequently provide the corresponding solutions.

The engineers use some certain devices to clamp the test car to make it relatively static to the ground, then the actuators make the car move up and down to simulate the slow motion under dynamic conditions. For example, when the left and right actuators are not at the same height, the car's heel on a turn can be simulated. The robot in the cab can measure the test car's steering torque from various kinds of movements. The sensor at the hub is able to measure kingpin inclination angle, camber angle and the steering angle.

When the preparation is ready, you just need to click the mouse so that the rack can do the measurement automatically. After a complex counting process, you can see a curve and a detailed report. During the test, the actuators of the rack can move independently due to different conditions, so they can perfectly simulate the steering roll, the braking nod, or even more complex conditions. The principle is similar to the simulation driving devices that are widely used in the pilots' study and training, and if you still do not have the exact concept, please think about the dynamic 3D movies or the racing games in the Game Center.

The rack is widely adopted in the racing industry such as NASCAR, Rally and GT racing. These cars tend to pursuit the performance to the best. Even though the K&C test can be as expensive as $800 per hour, people still consider it as a worthy, because it can put the computer simulation more closely to the actual road testing as well as evaluation. The racks are very widespread in the major automobile plants, and they are especially useful in the early stage of reverse engineer of the chassis.

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Posted in: Know Your Car