Tipping a Car: Factors Affecting Curve Negotiation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Flexington
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Car Curve Factors
AI Thread Summary
Factors affecting a car's tipping while negotiating a curve include mass, center of mass, velocity, curve radius, and wheel width. The angle of the roadway also plays a crucial role, as banking the turn can help direct centripetal force perpendicular to the car's chassis, reducing the risk of tipping. Friction is essential for maintaining grip at lower speeds, but higher speeds necessitate a banked turn to counteract outward forces. The balance of torques from centripetal acceleration and vertical forces determines the tipping threshold, with tipping occurring when outward torque exceeds opposing torque. Additionally, suspension stiffness and the car's interaction with road irregularities can influence grip and stability during turns.
Flexington
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
What factors effect the tipping of a car as it rounds a bend.

Mass, Centre of mass, Velocity, and radius of curve, width of wheels.

Am i missing anything?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
angle of roadway relative to center of curve...
 
simplistically it a fight between spinning out of a curve, tipping or staying on the road. The force of friction can hold a car in a turn at lower speeds but any faster and you need to bank a turn so that the centripetal force is directed perpendicular to the chassis of the car. This can reduce or completely nullify the force pushing the car out of the bend due to the circular motion in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banked_turn
 
On level pavement, the outwards torque is due to the reaction force due to centripetal acceleration, times the distance from center of mass of the car to the contact patches of the tires. The opposing torque is due to the imbalance in vertical forces between the pavement and the inner tiers versus the outwards tires (this is affected if the center of mass is offset inside or outside) The limit for the outwards torque is the amount of friction at the tires. The limit for the opposing torque occurs when there is no vertical force on the inner tires and all of the cars weight is on the outer tires. If the outwards torque exceeds the limits of the opposing torque, the car tips over.

The effective amount of grip can be increased if the car hits a bump or curb or dip while sliding sideways.
 
The height of the points where the suspensions are attached to the chassis :wink:
Of course the stiffness "k" of the suspensions.

[PLAIN]http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/6240/sospensione.jpg

width of wheels... mmmh... may be relevant... don't know.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Thread '1:1 versus 2:1 Mechanical Advantage debate'

The rope is tied into the person (the load of 200 pounds) and the rope goes up from the person to a fixed pulley and back down to his hands. He hauls the rope to suspend himself in the air. What is the mechanical advantage of the system? The person will indeed only have to lift half of his body weight (roughly 100 pounds) because he now lessened the load by that same amount. This APPEARS to be a 2:1 because he can hold himself with half the force, but my question is: is that mechanical...
View full post »

Thread 'Average velocity as a weighted mean'

Hello everyone, Consider the problem in which a car is told to travel at 30 km/h for L kilometers and then at 60 km/h for another L kilometers. Next, you are asked to determine the average speed. My question is: although we know that the average speed in this case is the harmonic mean of the two speeds, is it also possible to state that the average speed over this 2L-kilometer stretch can be obtained as a weighted average of the two speeds? Best regards, DaTario
View full post »

Thread 'Newton's first law?'

Some physics textbook writer told me that Newton's first law applies only on bodies that feel no interactions at all. He said that if a body is on rest or moves in constant velocity, there is no external force acting on it. But I have heard another form of the law that says the net force acting on a body must be zero. This means there is interactions involved after all. So which one is correct?
View full post »

Similar threads

Car in corner -- relative airflow
Replies
20
Views
3K
Conservation of Angular Mometum for a Car/Earth System
Replies
20
Views
2K
What are the aspects that can help a car to flip in a turn?
Replies
8
Views
3K
Modeling torque on a half car model
Replies
7
Views
2K
B The physics of flywheel launchers (like tennis ball shooters)
2
Replies
60
Views
4K
I How to transfer angular momentum between two flywheels?
Replies
8
Views
3K
Does a car's speed change during a turn?
Replies
4
Views
4K
Can someone explain how a car turns on a curve?
Replies
17
Views
4K
How Does Mass Influence the Reaction in Newton's 3rd Law of Motion?
Replies
9
Views
2K
Calculating the propulsive force acting on a car's wheels
Replies
4
Views
4K

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top