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Yesterday, we all got into an interesting discussion
about steering geometry. So I thought I would very briefly write
some stuff down.
Topics:
1. Ackermann Steering
2. Camber
3. Caster
4. King Pin Inclination
5. Toe In.
The importance of these on a 5 MPH 3/4 ton bicycle
was debated a lot yesterday. I've included links to Wikipedia
below for more info.
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Ackerman Steering.
According to the CarBible.com,
Charles Darwin's father, Erasmus Darwin, wrote a paper in 1758 describing
this steering arrangement but didn't patent it. Ackermann re-invented
it in 1817. Erasmus was a doctor and made house calls in wooden
wagons over rough roads in England. Apparently there was some interest
in his geometry but it didn't catch on. As traction improved over
time, scrubbing became less tolerable.
When a vehicle with more than two wheels makes a turn, all the
wheels should be turning around concentric circles otherwise something
has to skid or "scrub" as they call it. The drawing on
the right is clearly not correct. 
More Correct-er drawing at left. Each wheel travels
on a circle with different radius but the same center.
Wikipedia
explaination good. |
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| Camber: Negative
Camber, shown at right, improves tire grip when cornering. Now days
vehicles generally have a small amount of negative camber (-.5°).
Negative camber improves the grip when cornering. This
site says cars used to have positive camber to offset for vehicle
loading.
Tilting the wheel causes it to want to turn (like a motorcycle or
bicycle) and so if one wheel hits a bump and looses traction, the
other wheel will make the car turn a little, possibly causing jittery
steering. This sounds similar to Toe In but I could find nothing
that says that for sure.
The best thing for a low speed pedal powered
heavy vehicle probably is to preserve the undersized and underengineered
bearings as much as possible, which woul mean no camber only a little
castor.
Wikipedia |

Camber |
| Caster wheels
are alsways steering wheels. There is a steering axis and the wheel
axle.There are two ways to make a wheel caster. One is to have the
axle behind the axis. The other is to tilt the steering axis. Both
means cause the contact point of the tire to the ground to fall
behind the steering axis. The drag from this contact straightens
the wheel.
A tilted axis has the added effect of changing
the camber when the wheel is turned. Fortunately the change is in
the beneficial direction. While greater caster angles serve to improve
straight-line stability, they also cause an increase in steering
effort. Three to five degrees of positive caster is the typical
range of settings, with lower angles being used on heavier vehicles
to keep the steering effort reasonable.
Wikipedia |

Caster |
Kingpin Inclination
or KPI is seen from the front of the car. When the wheel turns,
the car is actually lifted. So the weight of the car straightens
the wheel.
KPI also effects the camber induced by caster.
Web sites that say the negative camber is lessened are confusing.
Is a negative number lessened when it's absolute value increases?
Yes. But is that what they meant? I don't know. I hope you feel
as lessoned as I.
When the kingpin points to a spot directly under
the wheel or "the center of the contact patch," then the
car has centerpoint steering. This makes low speed steering easy.
Bugatti in the 30's achieved this with positive camber of 3.5 deg
(a lot) and vertical kingpins (zero KPI). There are several forums
discussing this geometry.
When the king pin points inside the contact patch as shown at right,
the driver feels the road more. The difference is the Scrub Angle."
Wikipedia
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KPI |
Toe In settings affect three major
areas of performance: tire wear, straight-line stability and corner
entry handling characteristics. Most modern cars allow adjustments
to Toe setting only and not camber or castor.
Toe In resists change of direction when one tire hits a bump. Therefore,
Toe In has greater straight line stability but less responsive cornering.
Some race cars are set up with Tow Out.
Front wheel drive cars also have more Tow Out than rear wheel drive
cars. Read
this. |

Tow Angle |
Bicycle
Steering Geometry: This Wkipedia article seems pretty bad to me.
In the first few paragraphs they confuse the terms rake and fork offset
and continue to do so throughout the article, even when they are talking
about cyclists who confuse those terms.
They also introduce a myriad of new terms and we are supposed to infer
their meanings somehow. leaf rake, tines, and fork crown for instance. |
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