PCCS - Passive Camber Control System
By: Jason Ludwig, Jonathan Foster, Egan Chiu
Department: Engineering
Faculty Advisor: Dr. George Anwar
Double wishbone suspension dominates most forms of racing, especially in open-wheeled race cars such as Indycar, Super Formula, Formula 1, etc. However, although it has improved upon every suspension system before it, the double wishbone suspension is still a compromise. The purpose of race car suspension is to allow the driver to make maximum use of the tire’s frictional grip to achieve the fastest possible lap times. This means that the suspension must control the movement of the wheels 3 during suspension travel. This movement is different during longitudinal acceleration seen in braking and accelerating, and lateral (centrifugal) acceleration seen during cornering. During both scenarios, we want the wheel to be very close to vertical with the ground so that the contact area between the tire and the road is as large as possible. A double wishbone suspension cannot accomplish this under both scenarios. It can be designed to accomplish this goal perfectly under one scenario or the other, or a compromise between both, but never the best of both worlds. The goal of this project is to improve upon the double wishbone suspension by creating a mechanical system for adjusting a vehicle’s camber during cornering. The suspension system is designed so that it is tailored towards near perfect camber control under vertical body movements generated by longitudinal accelerations. Normally, this would result in poor camber control during cornering, but our system’s goal is designed around using the lateral cornering forces to pull the upper control arm towards the car in such a way that it would angle the tire perpendicular to the ground.