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Measuring vehicle drag forces using an on-board microcomputer

journal contribution
posted on 2017-09-01, 12:56 authored by Martin Passmore, E.G. Jenkins
The force resisting the straight-line motion of a road vehicle on a flat track consists of mechanical resistance and aerodynamic drag. It is necessary to measure these component forces over the speed range of the vehicle to obtain data for performance calculations and for the accurate calibration of modern chassis dynamometers used in fuel economy and exhaust emission tests. Continuous measurement of wheel torque, vehicle speed, airspeed and direction enables estimates to be made of the various drag forces that bring the vehicle to rest during a coastdown test. The data are analysed using a sophisticated parameter optimization routine to determine the numerical values of the coefficients in a mathematical model of the total road load. Repeatability of the results are assessed by calculating the uncertainties in the values obtained from a number of track tests. A brief description of the on-vehicle data acquisition and processing system is given, and the advantages of an advanced test and analytical process are demonstrated.

Funding

The support of the Science and Engineering Research Council and the Ford Motor Company for this project is gratefully acknowledged.

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering

Published in

Proceedings of the IMechE Paper No. DO3389

Volume

204

Pages

77 - 82

Citation

PASSMORE, M.A. and JENKINS, E.G., 1990. Measuring vehicle drag forces using an on-board microcomputer. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, 204 (2), pp. 77-82.

Publisher

SAGE © IMechE

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

1990

Notes

This paper is closed access.

ISSN

0954-4070

eISSN

2041-2991

Language

  • en

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