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Technical Paper

The Effects of Chassis Flexibility on Roll Stiffness of a Winston Cup Race Car

1998-11-16
983051
Predictable handling of a racecar may be achieved by tailoring chassis stiffness so that roll stiffness between sprung and unsprung masses are due almost entirely to the suspension. In this work, the effects of overall chassis flexibility on roll stiffness and wheel camber response, will be determined using a finite element model (FEM) of a Winston Cup racecar chassis and suspension. The FEM of the chassis/suspension is built from an assembly of beam and shell elements using geometry measured from a typical Winston cup race configuration. Care has been taken to model internal constraints between degrees-of-freedom (DOF) at suspension to chassis connections, e.g. t ball and pin joints and internal releases. To validate the model, the change in wheel loads due to an applied jacking force that rolls the chassis agrees closely with measured data.
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