To me, an active system must be able to add significant energy to the system; enough to pull a wheel up over an irregularity in the road surface so as to maintain a consistent contact patch load. This has obvious limitations (suspension stroke being primary among them).
As far as handling...
I would think fast 4 door is referring to the MP12, though I thought this ran some variant of the Kinetic system...I may be wrong though. I would NOT characterize that as an active system as described by fast4door.
That's a neat way of thinking about the relation/difference between active and passive suspensions. Just to check my understanding, I'm accustomed to the displacement vs. force diagram having four quadrants: the first is the upper left, continuing in clockwise fashion (such that 4 is directly...
I think this topic has been touched upon recently, you might have a look at the thread entitled 'tire forces about CG'.
I think when the wheelbase length and track width are fairly to each other (square car), and given high steer angles, the longitudinal component of the steered wheel can...
Thanks guys, much appreciated.
It was suggested to me by someone a LOT smarter than myself that, if we assume the front axle is 'fixed', a change could take place in the rear axle (compliance steer, etc), that could contribute to understeer.
I think I need to read the original Bundorf paper...
As part of my ongoing efforts to understand vehicle directional control, I've been trying to gain an understanding of cornering compliance. It's not going well.
My limited understanding of the concept is that many factors are included, such as roll steer, camber effects, aligning moments (more...
