Avanços em Engenharia Automobilística
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Abstrato

Tire Contribution to Caravan Fishtailing

Edward Brell, David Thambiratnam

The terminal end to fishtailing has ruined many a caravan vacation, caused injury and even loss of life has been reported. The only thing between the ground and the mass of caravan is a small patch on the bottom of the tires. A serious study of fishtailing needs to consider the steering action performed by this patch. A sideways flexible tire will exacerbate caravan sway where a laterally stiff tire may avoid fishtailing altogether. The main contribution of this paper is to illustrate the quantitative extent to which this is evident by comparing two tires of equal outside diameter but different wheel rim diameters. Accumulation of yaw energy that drives the oscillation in the comparison is shown to be approximately four times more in the flexible tire compared to the stiff tire. Methodology is developed in this paper to enable the comparison to proceed. This proceed approaches using tire “steering” as the motivating action responsible for fishtailing. Although this paper provides comparison for only two tires, it provides good grounding for further studies. Any forensic study for courts or civil litigation should find this paper helpful offering easy-relatable concepts needed for court digestion rather than complex vibration theory.