Brake, Corner, and Bump forces on a Remote Control Car

Eric Wardell ME EN 353-5 6 April, 2012

Abstract

Introduction

With the use of accelerometers, the forces acting on an HPI Racing remote control car were measured. The car was fitted with accelerometers, and subjected to the stresses of normal operating conditions. Resulting data was gathered, noise was filtered out, and maximum accelerations determined. It was found that the cars experience a maximum brake load of 98.5 Newtons, cornering load of 97.1 N, and pothole load of 84.9 N.

In the special case of topology optimization it is most important that the magnitudes of the forces in the x, y, and z

To perform a successful FEA, it is critical that accurate data is fed into the program. The results from the FEA are extremely sensitive to the accuracy of this input.(Cho, Ngaile, & Altan, 2004). The purpose of finite element analysis is to simulate real-world situations, such as stress states of loaded structures. In order to accurately represent the physical situation, the mathematical model of the analysis must contain data which mimics the real situation as closely as possible. For this reason it is said that in every finite element analysis the accuracy of the output is only as good as the accuracy of the input data (Pinnacle Engineering Inc., 2011).

The ME EN 471 class at Brigham Young University relies on accurate data in its projects to redesign remote-controlled cars. The major focus of the class is the analysis and redesign of RC cars from HPI Racing. This activity provides training and practice in methods used in industry, in the design and redesign of products. In the class the students utilize the HyperWorks suite of programs to perform finite-element analyses (FEA) and optimizations. The resulting information from these methods allows the students to change and improve the design of several car components.

directions have correct ratios with respect to each other. Optistruct uses these ratios to determine where the load paths lie within a structure. The solver will output a result with similar optimized shapes whether all of those loads are large or small.

The current practice of the students in the ME EN 471 class it to simply guess the loads passing through different members of the car. They estimate the magnitudes of the bump, braking, and cornering loads which the car feels in different driving maneuvers. These estimated inputs do produce results, but these results are limited in their accuracy. It is obvious that forces act on the car as it is driven, but this work serves to precisely measure those bump, brake, and cornering forces acting on an HPI Racing RC car during normal driving maneuvers.

Methods

The ME EN 471 class uses several models of remote controlled cars from HPI Racing. The most common models of cars are the Sprint 2 series, and the E10 series. The E10 RTR Ford GT LM Race Car Spec II was used in this research (HPI Racing, 2012)(Figure 1). Because of the similarity of size, weight, and performance the results achieved with this car are assumed to be applicable to most of the other cars used in the class. The car includes two types of tires. The default tires on the E10 Ford GT are rubber treaded tires, which provide excellent traction on asphalt and concrete. An alternate

made by Vernier was used as the data acquisition interface. The LabQuest was also attached to the E10 car with zip-ties and twisted wires (Figure 3). The LabQuest did not require such firm attachment as the sensor itself. It was only necessary that it stay on the car and prevent damage to itself and to the car.
Figure 1 HPI Racing E10 Ford GT

The forces acting through the car during driving were measured using accelerometers. A 3-axis accelerometer was attached to a level surface of the car near the rear-left tire (Figure 2). It was necessary for the sensor to be attached firmly to some part of the car, but without permanent modifications to the sensor or to the car. Instead of screws or glue we used a strong, tight zip-tie to hold the sensor firmly in place during all of the driving maneuvers. The xaxis of the accelerometer pointed to the front of the car so it would measure acceleration and braking forces. Therefore, in this position the y-direction measured cornering forces, and the z-direction sensed the bump loads. The 3-axis accelerometer outputted data to a data acquisition device. The LabQuest device

set of hard plastic drift tires was also considered, which slide when driven on most surfaces.

Figure 2 3-axis accelerometer attached to car

During the two, 120-second runs, the car drove in a variety of maneuvers which produced accelerations in the x, y, and z directions. The car accelerated as fast as possible from rest and then decelerated to a stop again. It was subjected to cornering techniques at maximum speed. These maneuvers produced measurable forces for normal driving situations. However, as the students of the ME EN 471 class redesign the car they must be sure the new components can withstand light to moderate crashes without breaking. Therefore it was necessary to measure the forces acting through the car in these harsh situations as well. The E10 Ford GT was subjected to crashes in the x, y and z directions during each 120-second run. The car ran head-on into a concrete curb at approximately two-thirds of its maximum

With the measuring devices securely fastened, the testing began. A fresh, fullycharged battery was attached to the car, to give it optimal performance. The LabQuest was configured to measure the acceleration of the car in the 3 directions in units of gs. The instrument took data at a rate of 50 measurements per second, for a period of 120 seconds.

Figure 3 LabQuest attached to E10 car

stored, graphed, and analyzed.

Results

During most normal driving the accelerations remained within about 1 g, but during crashes the acceleration peaked at about 7 gs. These high accelerations produces forces close to 100 Newtons passing through the car. speed (Figure 4). It also slid sideways into the same curb at near the maximum speed possible for this maneuver. Lastly, the car jumped off of a three-inch curb at maximum speed (Figure 5, 6). At this height the car landed on all four wheels and bottomed out, causing the tub-chassis to scrape along the ground. The curb was not tall enough however to allow time for the nose of the car to dip in the air and hit the ground first, it landed relatively level, as it would in most normal driving conditions. The car was subjected to each of these maneuvers during each 120-second run, and the data was
Figure 4 Curb for x and y direction crashes

The data from each run was sampled at a rate of 50 Hz, which resulted in 6000 data points for each direction. Unfortunately this data is full of noise. This is clearly evident in Figure 7, which shows the data gathered from Run 1 during 1 second of time, from 19.2 seconds to 20.2 seconds. The car crashed at about 19.8 seconds, which can be seen in the data. However the noise in the data is also evident, where the accelerometers seem to tell the data acquisition device of abrupt changes in acceleration in mere fractions of a second.For example, in this time from 19.2 seconds to 20.2 seconds, the accelerometers report 21 changes in sign of the Xacceleration (from positive to negative or from negative to positive). To clean up the results the data was filtered in Matlab, and the noise was removed. A fourth-order Butterworth filter with a cutoff frequency of 7.5 Hz was used. This filter also compensated for phase lag. Figure 8 shows the same snap-shot of time (19.2 seconds to 20.2 seconds) after the data was filtered.

Initially, hard drift tires were tested with the belief that their plastic material would cause the car to slide sideways, thereby producing accelerations in the ydirection. However, we discovered the drift tires hindered the cars capacity to accelerate and decelerate quickly in the x-direction. For this reason the rubber treaded tires replaced the drift tires, and the car drove in slightly different maneuvers in order to still produce large accelerations in the y-direction. By implementing the change the most accurate data was gathered for the use in the finite element analyses.

Figures 5 and 6 Curb for z-direction jump

8 X Acceleration 6 Y Acceleration Z Acceleration

Acceleration (g's)

-2

-4 19.2 19.4 19.6 19.8 19.24 19.28 19.32 19.36 19.44 19.48 19.52 19.56 19.64 19.68 19.72 19.76 19.84 19.88 19.92 19.96 20.04 20.08 20.12 20.16 20.2 20.2 20

Time (seconds) Figure 7 Acceleration data from Run 1, 19.2 seconds to 20.2 seconds. Acceleration spikes are evident at 19.68 s, 19.82 s, and 20.08 s. These are caused by bumps or crashes. This data was cleaned up by using a filter. The filtered data is shown in Figure 8. 4 3 2 Acceleration (g's) 1 0 X Acceleration Y Acceleration Z Acceleration

-1 -2 -3 19.2 19.4 19.6 19.24 19.28 19.32 19.36 19.44 19.48 19.52 19.56 19.64 19.68 19.72 19.76 19.8 19.84 19.88 19.92 19.96 20.04 20.08 20.12 Time (seconds) 20.16 20

Figure 8 Filtered acceleration data from Run 1, 19.2 seconds to 20.2 seconds. When compared to Figure 7 it is clear to see that the noise has been removed. However, the filter has also reduced the magnitude of the The highest values ofsuch acceleration The acceleration at key moments, as 19.8 seconds.

The highest values of acceleration gathered from the unfiltered data during the both runs are shown below in Table 1, 2, and 3 Table 1 Largest values of X Acceleration Acceleration (gs) Run Time (seconds) -7.386 1 6.76 -7.386 1 14.0 -7.386 2 87.06 -7.37 2 32.64 -6.901 1 27.34 -6.744 2 69.9 -6.573 1 33.16

Table 4 Forces passing through E10 car at maximum accelerations (during biggest crashes) Maximum Force Acceleration passing (m/s2) through car (Newtons) X Direction 72.5 98.5 Y Direction 71.4 97.1 Z Direction 62.4 84.9 The largest calculated brake load (X direction) is 98.5 Newtons. The largest cornering load (Y direction) was found to be 97.1 Newtons, and the largest calculated bump load (Z direction) is 84.9 Newtons.

Table 2 Largest values of Y Acceleration Acceleration Run Time (gs) (seconds) 7.28 1 19.82 7.28 1 113.58 7.219 1 49.64 5.764 1 33.22 -5.682 1 50.14 5.344 2 21.76 -5.069 2 79.92 Table 3 Largest values of Z Acceleration Acceleration Run Time (gs) (seconds) -6.365 2 80.04 5.733 1 80.48 5.529 2 55.22 5.392 2 40.64 -5.311 1 113.4 -5.092 2 22.18 -4.765 1 98.22

Discussion

The cars weight is 1.36 kg. The LabQuest data acquisition device itself weighs an extra 0.45 kg. By using Newtons law (F=ma) we can determine the forces passing through the car. Table 4 displays the maximum accelerations and maximum forces.

The Advanced CAE Applications course at BYU has been in need of real data pertaining to the remote control cars used in the classs main project. An experiment was designed to find the accelerations and decelerations due to normal driving and due to mild-to-moderate crashes. The data gathered and results obtained will be a great help to the ME 471 class at Brigham Young University, but only if the results are indeed accurate. One must ask what the number truly represents. Some of the most important components of the car which must be designed to withstand these forces are the control arms and suspension assembly. It is seemingly simple to think that each wheel will only bear one-fourth of the load in a crash. While the wheels will share most of the forces equally during normal accelerating and cornering, in a crash just one or two wheels may hit the obstacle. In such a situation just one wheel and suspension assembly could bear the entire load alone.Therefore the designer must model the assembly at each wheel to withstand all of these forces, so that the car will not break if hit at only one wheel. The filtered data seemed to accurately represent the true reading of the normal driving conditions. During these segments of time, there are no large changes in

acceleration from one measurement to another. Therefore the filtered data does a good job of removing the noise without affecting the true results. This is evident in Figure 9, which shows a plot of the raw data and filtered data together from a certain segment of time from Run 1. Unfortunately, the filter seems to dampen the moments of sudden change in the data, or in other words, the moments in time when the car crashes into the wall. This can be clearly seen in Figure 9, between 49.5 and 49.6 seconds. The filtered data line struggles to follow the original data at this moment in time because of the dramatic change in acceleration in the very short amount of time. The accelerometer measures 0 gs, then -6 gs, +6 gs, then 0 gs

Figure 9 Unfiltered and filtered data from X-direction acceleration, run 1. Matlab generated plot. The filter removes the noise present in the system, but it also greatly reduces the magnitudes of acceleration at critical impulse moments (crashes). At approximately 49.6 seconds, the acceleration rapidly oscillates between large negative and large positive accelerations. This is due to the design of the accelerometer.

again within 0.14 seconds! During this crash was the car really subjected to +6 gs and then -6 gs almost instantaneously? The answer is no. This large amount of jerk is due to the design of the accelerometer itself.

The accelerometer used in this experiment is basically a very small springmass system. The accelerations which the sensor undergoes slide the mass a certain distance. The displacement of the mass is detected by a variable resistor, and the whole instrument is calibrated to output accurate accelerations. This spring-mass system will oscillate when subjected to a sudden and short-lived acceleration. Small bumps and the resultant oscillations in the spring-mass

system cause much of the noise in the data. The abrupt change from of -6 gs to +6 gs was also caused by this oscillation. During the crash it is likely that the car did experience upwards of -6 gs at that moment, but as the force causing the acceleration abruptly stopped, the mass in the accelerometer shot back and recorded a little less than +6 gs. Since the first peak measurement is a real acceleration and not simply noise, we can confidently use its value to determine the maximum acceleration on the car.

Another important factor to consider in the analysis of the results is the fact that while taking the measurements, the LabQuestwas attached to the E10 car, increasing its weight. This extra weight did decrease the acceleration of the vehicle as it sped up and cornered. However, it did not change the rate at which it decelerated when it hit a wall and stopped abruptly. Therefore, the large accelerations seen due to crashes would be very similar to values obtained without any extra weight. Also, the sensors measured acceleration, which is entirely independent of mass. The forces traveling through the car were calculated with the mass of the car, without the extra weight. The results from this experiment will be presented to the professor and TAs of the Advanced CAE Applications class. With their approval the data will be given to the students for use on their projects.

whole were determined, but those passing through individual components are left to calculations and speculations. An experiment focusing on one part, a control arm for example, would add to this knowledge. Such an experiment could be carried out with the use of strain gauges, or other similar instruments. If further work on this topic is done, one could enhance the data gathering by filming the car as it performed. A video would provide clear evidence as to what the car was doing during key moments. The video and data could be synced to give physical explanation to the gathered data. The experiment and analysis determined the magnitudes of X, Y, and Zdirectional forces traveling through an HPI remote controlled car during normal use. Accelerometers were attached to a car and it was driven and crashed while data was gathered. This data was graphed, cleaned-up, and analyzed. The results show forces approaching 100 Newtons passing through the car as it hits obstacles.

Acknowledgements

Steve Owen helped in several ways during this experiment. He gave suggestions in the direction the research should take, and assisted in gathering data.

There is potential for further work on this subject. The forces acting on the car as a

Allan Peaden provided much-needed assistance in creating an effective filter in Matlab. His knowledge and experience in the topic prevented the project from getting stuck at this step.

Works Cited

Pinnacle Engineering Inc. (2011). Retrieved February 2012, from http://www.pinenginc.com/feafinite-element-analysis.htm HPI Racing. (2012). Retrieved Februrary 2012, from http://www.hpiracing.com/kitinfo/10785/ Cho, H., Ngaile, G., & Altan, T. (2004). 3D Finite Element Analysis of Orbital Forming and Inverse Analysis for Determination of Flow Stress of the Workpiece. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Numerical Methods in Industrial Forming Processes., (pp. 15021507).