Vehicle Dynamics Concepts for a

Solar Racing Car

Click to edit Master subtitle style

SIMPACK User Meeting 2011 – Salzburg, Austria

Oliver Gazeley
Fitzwilliam College
University of Cambridge

1
 Contents
•Introduction and Motivation
•Aims of Project

•Structure of SIMPACK model

•Validation

•Aerodynamic Modelling

•Steady-state cornering

•Pitch Stability

•Future Work

•Conclusions

2
 Introduction

“Cambridge University Eco Racing (CUER) designs, builds and

races solar-powered cars. Our racing cars showcase cutting-
edge sustainable engineering and demonstrate the incredible
potential of electric vehicle technologies. By designing a car to
run on solar power alone, we are forced to make a step
change in vehicle efficiency, resulting in new technologies for
a low-carbon future.”

3
 Introduction
CUER will be entering a team into the World
•

Solar Challenge in 2011

3000km from Darwin to Adelaide

•

Need to know how the car handles

•

•
Stability
•
Safety

Need to consider aerodynamic effects

•

World Solar There is speculation that the battery failed in

•

Challenge 2009's challenge due to excessive vibration.

Need to investigate vibration issues
October 2011

4
 Motivation
•The motivation of this project is to better understand how the car will behave in
different scenarios, and thus to inform design decisions for future cars
•The issue of aerodynamic stability is important, as the car is essentially a light
aerofoil and will regularly be passed by road trains in Australia, causing aerodynamic
disturbances.

A road train on the Stuart Highway

Le Mans Car Flip (1999)

5
 Aims of the Project
Existing
Field-Test
Data
Existing
handling
model
Combine into
single Validate Model Aero Parametric
comprehensive new model Forces Studies
model
Existing
ride model
Surveying
data for Data from
track input Aero Team

6
 SIMPACK model
Basic architecture of model:
Additionally:
•Simple driver model used to control front
steer angle to follow desired path
•Control system used to regulate driving
speed by applying torque to the front wheel
•Mass of driver, batteries and other
instrumentation added to the chassis
•Pacejka similarity tyre model used for
simplicity
•Chassis joined to ground using 6 d.o.f. track
joint
•Friction model in parallel with spring and
damper, applying hysteresis loop

7
 SIMPACK model

•Screenshots showing the SIMPACK model. Red items are testing equipment,
batteries and laptop, green cylinder represents the driver.
•Composite shell is not shown in the model

8
 Validation
•Previous projects recorded lots of data for straight line and step tests,
including suspension deflections and accelerometers at 5 different locations

•The SIMPACK model can be validated against this data, provided the original
road or step input is known

•The data can be compared deterministically or spectrally

9
 Validation – Front Step Data
•Suspension parameters were tuned to give good deterministic match between
measured (green) and simulated (pink) front suspension deflections for a 33mm step

Deflection (m)

Time (s)

Front suspension parameters: k = 30000N/m, c = 600Ns/m, hysteresis loop magnitude = 48N

10
 Validation – Rear Step Data
•Suspension parameters were tuned to give good deterministic match between
measured (green) and simulated (pink) front suspension deflections for a 66mm step

Deflection (m)

Time (s)

Rear suspension parameters: k = 13000N/m, c = 1500Ns/m, hysteresis loop magnitude = 400N

11
 Validation – Straight Line Data
•GPS data exists from testing performed in previous projects. This data
was used to find the location on the track where the tests occurred
•Once located, the track was marked out and surveyed for 100m to
define the track excitations to be input to the SIMPACK model for
straight line validation
•The vertical height of points were measured every 20cm along the 100m
track

12
 Validation – Straight Line Data

•This was input to the SIMPACK model as a road-related excitation

•The simulated accelerations seen at above the front wheel and above the
rear wheels were compared to the accelerations seen in practice to
confirm that the behaviour of the car was suitably modelled by SIMPACK

13
 Validation – Straight Line Data

Front accelerations comparison

Rear right accelerations comparison

14
 Aerodynamic Modelling
•Data acquired from computational fluid dynamics for lift, drag and centre of
pressure for different yaw and pitch angles of the vehicle
•Force element added to act at the origin of the chassis of the car, providing a
lift force, drag force, pitch moment, yaw moment and roll moment as
calculated using expressions in SIMPACK:

Pitch angle = Φ, Yaw angle = δ

Lift, L = f(δ,Φ), Drag, D = f(δ,Φ)
Centre of pressure (x,y,z) = f(δ,Φ)
Pitch moment = L.x – D.z
Yaw moment = -D.y
Roll moment = -L.y

15
 Steady-state cornering
•The model was used to simulate steady-state cornering at a speed of
20m/s for a range of circle radii
•From this, a handling diagram was produced up to the point of instability

7.0000
In this graph, u is the velocity of the vehicle, R is the
radius of the turn, delta is the steer angle and L is
the distance between front and rear wheels
6.0000

5.0000

•It can be seen that at large radii or

4.0000
small velocities that the vehicle has the
u^2/R

3.0000 tendency to understeer.

2.0000 •At higher speeds, or tighter turns, the
vehicle begins to oversteer until it
reaches instability.
1.0000

0.0000
0.0000 0.0020 0.0040 0.0060 0.0080 0.0100 0.0120 0.0140 0.0160

delta - L/R

16
 Pitch Stability
•Pitch Stability was investigated by applying an upward impulse to the
front of the car while it is in steady-state and observing the resulting
motion
•It was found that the car was stable as the centre of pressure moves to
the rear of the car and causes a restoring moment when the car pitches
up

This graph shows the behaviour of

pitch angle for three different
magnitudes of impulse.
It can be seen that the oscillations
decay in a stable manner.

17
 Future Work

•Improve friction model for suspension by modelling stick/slip

behaviour
•Incorporate chassis bending into model
•Add a realistic braking model and investigate handling while
braking or more complicated manoeuvres

18
 Conclusions
•SIMPACK was used to combine and enhance ride and handling models
from previous projects

•Steering and driving torque control systems added

•Aerodynamic response added using a single force element and

expressions to calculate required forces and moments from CFD data

•Vehicle response validated using step and straight-line data and tuned to
give most realistic behaviour

•Handling and stability issues investigated. Limit of handling stability found

and pitch behaviour found to be stable even at large pitch angles

•Behaviour of the car is much better understood before its 3000km journey
in October

19
 If you have any questions regarding this
project, I would be very happy to answer
them.

Please e-mail me at og229@cam.ac.uk

Follow the progress of the CUER team at:

www.cuer.co.uk

20