Brian Beckman's
(The articles available for download in Adobe® Acrobat®
(PDF) form, suitable for printing.)
The Physics of Racing
The how's, why's and wherefores of punting a car around a track... the entire Physics
of Racing Series by Brian Beckman, PhD, reproduced here with permission.
Introduction to the PhORS articles
By Brian Beckman
"I started this series in 1991 for my local racing
club's printed newsletter. The web had just been born, though the Internet
was not yet public. Nonetheless, I distributed the articles over the
Internet at that time and they become reasonably well known, especially
amongst the autocrossing community in the US. The first 13 parts were
written in 1991, so they contain some very dated ideas, such as using
Scheme for writing simulations. However, the entire series is presented
here, as originally written. Perhaps at some later time I will consolidate
and update the series, but for now, I am focusing on writing new parts.
There are currently a number of 'live threads' in the discussion that I
wish to pursue at length.
My overall goal with the series is to present a fresh
outlook on racing physics, understandable to the technically inclined
non-specialist. The problems I consider come from a variety of sources.
Often, they're motivated by computer simulation, and just as often they
arise from competition experiences. Some of the later articles get very
technical, but I always try to balance conceptual discussion, which
everyone should be able to understand, with mathematical analysis, which
might of interest only to specialists, and with numerical results, which,
again, should be universally accessible.
When I first started the series, I purposely avoided the
standard reference sources, preferring to figure things out myself from
first principles. In the past ten years, a number of superior source
books, papers, and programs have become available, and it is no longer
sensible for me to avoid them. I've had my fun, now it is time to 'get
real.' So, in the later articles, I refer to the well known books by
Milliken, Gillespie, Genta, and Carroll Smith; as well as to free
simulation packages such as RARS, TORCS, and Racer.
There is a tremendous amount of activity in racing
simulation nowadays that computer hardware is fast enough to permit
extremely detailed modeling of racing cars in real time. The realism of
Grand-Prix Legends, for instance, was unimaginable in real time in 1991.
Despite this growth, I continue to hope that the Physics of Racing series
can fulfill its original dual roles of translating racing lore and craft
into hardcore physics and of making that physics understandable to
real-world working race drivers and teams.
Finally, I wish to point out that these articles are
FREE. I retain the copyright ONLY to prevent the kind of theft that would
make the articles difficult to copy, meaning that I grant to everyone,
everywhere a perpetual, transferable, universal, royalty-free license to
copy, host, post, translate, convert, transform, and reproduce the
articles in any form whatever, asking only that the content and
attribution not be changed and that the rights of anyone, anywhere to
further copy the articles not be restricted, say, by charging money for
copies."
The
Physics of Racing
| View |
Title |
Download
PDF's |
| Part 1 |
Weight Transfer |
(904k) |
| Part 2 |
Keeping Your Tyres Stuck to
the Ground |
(792k) |
| Part 3 |
Basic Calculations |
(786k) |
| Part 4 |
There Is No Such Thing as
Centrifugal Force |
(898k) |
| Part 5 |
Introduction to the Racing
Line |
(953k) |
| Part 6 |
Speed and Horsepower |
(903k) |
| Part 7 |
The Traction Budget |
(1019k) |
| Part 8 |
Simulating Car Dynamics with
a Computer Program |
(815k) |
| Part
9 |
Straights |
(996k) |
| Part
10 |
Grip Angle |
(904k) |
| Part
11 |
Braking |
(427k) |
| Part
12 |
CyberCar, Every Racer's DWIM
Car? |
(832k) |
| Part
13 |
Transients (The missing
episode) |
(943k) |
| Part
14 |
Why Smoothness? |
(1099k) |
| Part
15 |
Bumps In The Road |
(1229k) |
| Part
16 |
RARS, A Simple Racing
Simulator |
(1104k) |
| Part
17 |
"Slow-in,
Fast-out!" or, Advanced Analysis of the Racing Line |
(955k) |
| Part
18 |
"Slow-in,
Fast-out!" or, Advanced Analysis of the Racing Line,
Continued |
(1031k) |
| Part
19 |
Space, Time, and Rubber |
(635k) |
| Part
20 |
Four-Point Stratics |
(981k) |
| Part
21 |
The Magic Formula:
Longitudinal Version |
(1093k) |
| Part
22 |
The Magic Formula: Lateral
Version |
(1026k) |
| Part
23 |
Trail Braking |
(856k) |
| Part
24 |
Combination Slip |
(781k) |
| Part
25 |
Combination Grip |
(1021k) |
| Part
26 |
The Driving Wheel, Chapter I |
(1108k) |
| Part
27 |
Four-Wheel Weight Transfer |
(973k) |
| Part
28 |
Hazards of Integration |
(1152k) |
| Part
29 |
A Magical Trick |
(1501k) |
|
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