J. Inst. Eng. India Ser.
C (January–March 2014) 95(1):1–4
DOI 10.1007/s40032-013-0089-6
ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION
Concept for a Differential Lock and Traction Control Model
in Automobiles
A. K. Shukul • S. K. Hansra
Received: 22 April 2012 / Accepted: 18 October 2013 / Published online: 11 February 2014
Ó The Institution of Engineers (India) 2014
Abstract The automobile is a complex integration of
electronics and mechanical components. One of the major
components is the differential which is limited due to its
shortcomings. The paper proposes a concept of a cost
effective differential lock and traction for passenger cars to
sports utility vehicles alike, employing a parallel braking
mechanism coming into action based on the relative speeds
of the wheels driven by the differential. The paper high-
lights the employment of minimum number of components
unlike the already existing systems. The system was
designed numerically for the traction control and differ-
ential lock for the world’s cheapest car. The paper manages
to come up with all the system parameters and component
costing making it a cost effective system.
Keywords Differential  Parallel braking 
Traction control  Differential lock  Numerical design 
Cost effectiveness
Introduction
The automobile since its inception has been of vital
importance to the human race. It has been tried to better the
vehicle performance by improving every component
A. K. Shukul (&)
Engineering and Design, Tata Technologies Limited, Pune,
Maharashtra, India
e-mail: anirudhkumarshukul@gmail.com
S. K. Hansra
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Army Institute of
Technology, Pune, Maharashtra, India
e-mail: sonalkiranhansra@gmail.com
employed in the automobile. One of the most vital com-
ponent used in vehicles these days is the differential cage.
The differential is the component required for turning
the drive from the engine by an angle of 90° with fixed
reduction of speed and for assisting the vehicle turning
over the curves. Besides this the differential also serves the
purpose of providing the tractive effort to the wheels of an
automobile. However this leads to one of the biggest
problems that can be associated with the differential.
Travelling on a muddy patch or a slippery terrain we often
come across a situation of freewheeling or skidding of one
of the differential driven wheels. This problem is a result of
the differential meeting the torque demand of the wheel
which has lesser resistance to its motion, causing free-
wheeling of the wheel and leading to other wheel being
stationary. This is solved by a differential lock [1, 2] which
causes the differential to meet the demands of the wheel
which has greater resistance to its motion.
The second limitation of the differential action can be
seen during normal driving conditions. When the outer
wheel of the vehicle on a turn overspeeds with respect to
the inner wheel than what is demanded by the turn. It is
when the speed of the outer wheel crosses this value that
skidding occurs. This cannot be monitored by the differ-
ential and hence a system called traction control is
deployed, however another electronic differential lock
system breaks the wheel whenever one wheel rotates by
100 rpm more than the other causing the system to break it.
Similar systems of traction control [1, 2] can also be found
in few other Indian vehicles.
The approaches employed in various vehicles uses
similar traction control system as we have proposed. The
traction control system with the anti-lock braking system
causes the same system to perform both the above func-
tions. The differential lock however finds it application in
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2 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (January–March 2014) 95(1):1–4
sports utility vehicle, pickup trucks and military vehicles.
The following limitations can be associated with the
existing systems [3, 4]:
1. Locking differential (selectable locking), being
mechanical in nature have a lot of complex parts,
since the system has a human intervention largely
which leads to malfunctioning of the system.
2. Limited slip differential, not capable of 100 % lockup
and causes considerable friction loss.
3. Automatic lockers, being always locked increases
considerable tyre wear and considerable impact on
driving behavior is noticed.
A system has been proposed for implementation of braking
system in automobile with an approximate additional
costing of INR 10,000 only with a differential lock and
traction control. The proposed system can be implemented
in all vehicles equipped with or without an anti-lock brake
system and better their performance as the differential lock
comes in like an added feature.
System Description
In the proposed concept, a system of hydraulics and elec-
tronics together come up with a simple but highly efficient
and cost effective mechanism to provide better traction in
automobiles. This is done as follows:
1. Each differential driven wheel has been provided with
an rpm sensor which monitors the rpm of the wheels.
2. This value is then sent to a comparator which monitors
the speed and compares it to previously fed values,
braking the outer wheel in case of overshooting
combinations of drivelines were considered for the
concept (Fig. 1).
System Calculations
The system has been designed keeping in mind the Indian
road congress IRC:SP:73-2007 [5], which states that the
Fig. 1 Driveline circuit
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roads designed in India need to have an absolute minimum
radius of curve of 30 m for steep roads to 230 m for
highway roads.
Using the basic equations of relative motion and linking
it to the differential action (maximum of 1.6 for the auto-
mobile under consideration) the following equation has
been formulated.
 
track width ¼ 1:495 m for test vehicle
1þ
road radii for inner wheel
¼ Differential action
From the equation it is observed that when the differential
action was kept as 1.6, the radius for the inner wheel is
obtained as 2.49 m and the turning circle radius of the
vehicle as 3.98 m which is the minimum turning circle
radius of the vehicle under study.
On further analysis of the data it is found that in
accordance to the Indian road congress IRC:SP:73-2007 [5]
the differential action should not be greater than the value
of 1.1, it was also observed that if we limited the value to 1
the differential acts like a system similar to that of the
differential lock. A system has been designed which allows
only a maximum 1.1 times speed variation between the
inner and the outer wheels of the vehicle. The system acts
like a traction control when the differential action is greater
than 1.1 and less than equal to 1.6.
Concept
To limit the differential action in the range of 1–1.1, the
comparator is fed values which allow a maximum speed
deviation of 1.1 after the speeds of 30 kmph to come into
action. The RPM sensors monitoring each wheel give an
input to the comparator which on observing a difference in
RPM is beyond 1 than the actual, the system operates the
solenoid valve of the wheel which is over speeding causing
the brakes to be applied on to the wheel cylinder of the
wheel over speeding braking it to get its RPM to the
acceptable value. The system acts as a traction control
system.
The differential lock becomes a special case of the
above system when the comparator has to ensure that the
differential action is always 1. This is done by monitoring
RPM’s of the two wheels such that their values are same.
This is done by giving the driver an onboard switch which
allows the differential to be locked whenever the need
arises or felt by the driver.
The system works on the following logical circuit
where two RPM sensors N1 and N2 which give input to
the comparator which actuates the solenoid valves S1 and
S2 respectively based on the logical table (Fig. 2;
Table 1).
J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (January–March 2014) 95(1):1–4 3

Hydraulic Circuit

The hydraulic circuit which have been designed in accor-

dance to [7], comprise of the following components, a fixed
displacement pump which is connected to a hydraulic gas
charged accumulator, the circuit has been represented in
Fig. 3. It has three modes of operation when the system is
worked upon by manual braking, the solenoid S1 which
operates as it senses the RPM of the right wheel to be
greater than the permissible value and finally a similar
function as that of S1 is performed by S2 which is an
actuator for left wheel brake. The three cases are repre-
Fig. 2 Driveline logic circuit sented by Figs. 4, 5 and 6 respectively.

Table 1 Logic circuit table

N1 N2 Comparator output Remarks

1 0 S1 Right wheel overspeeding

0 1 S2 Left wheel overspeeding

System Variables

The system takes input from the rpm Sensors; the change in
Fig. 3 Basic hydraulic circuit
rpm was considered to be an overshoot of 1 rpm. Whenever
the comparator senses the overshoot it operates the sole-
noid valve of the side which is overshooting. We have
considered a real time system without delay.
The system was considered for a standard well known
four wheeler where the values mentioned are only a theo-
retical set obtained by considering the actual system val-
ues, which were either measured from the actual parts for
the brake cylinder and the other values were the specifi-
cations of the individual components such as the friction
lining coefficient for the vehicle which can be read from
the part itself.
Combining all the values obtained by either measuring
or from the specifications the results were obtained using Fig. 4 Foot operated braking hydraulic circuit
the brake equations [6], shown in Table 2.

Table 2 System variables table

Parameters Value

Overshooting value of rpm 1

Speed variation (km/h) 0.0957
Brake force (Pounds g) [6] 3187.144
Drg (deceleration rate in g) [6] 1.593572
Braking time for above variation (s) [6] 0.001706
Force required (kg g) 724.351
Area of brake cylinder (m2) 0.00024
Pressure of accumulator (bar) 30.13029 Fig. 5 Solenoid S1 operated braking hydraulic circuit for right
wheel

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4 J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C (January–March 2014) 95(1):1–4

require a simple conversion of the differential driven

wheels to a power brake system. Vehicles with already
existing power brakes or completely pneumatic brakes
require minimal additional plumbing and can function in
the above proposed manner with a few adjustments to the
braking control unit.
The system costs depend upon manufacturer of the
components and mass production, but if we use it to modify
the present system we get a minimal cost addition of
10,000 INR only.
Fig. 6 Solenoid S2 operated braking hydraulic circuit for left wheel
Acknowledgments The authors are thankful to the Army Institute
of Technology for their guidance in completion of this work.
Conclusion

The system proposed uses less number of additional References

components, hence has greater reliability, lower cost and
simplicity without wastage of power. This is because dur- 1. J. Erjavec, Automotive Technology (Delmar Thomson Learning,
USA, 2000)
ing differential locking mode, brake on the free spinning
2. T.K. Garret, K. Newton, W. Steeds, The Motor Vehicle (Butter-
wheel is applied and hence the power of this wheel is worth-Heinmann, Oxford, 2001)
transferred to the other wheel. Disadvantages of proposed 3. Wikipedia, Traction control
system include increased tire wear and additional stress on 4. Wikipedia, Differential lock
5. Final manual for specification standards by Indian Road Congress
drive shaft whose brakes are applied for obtaining differ-
IRC:SP:73-2007
ential lock. It is therefore required to design half shaft with 6. T.W. Birch, Automotive Braking Systems (Delmar Publishers, New
double factor of safety because it has to transmit total York, 1999)
torque rather than 50 % torque as in conventional differ- 7. J.L. Johnson, Introduction to Fluid Power (Delmar publications,
New York, 2003)
ential system.
This system is suitable for all vehicles with little mod-
ifications; vehicles with manual hydraulic braking system

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