Published on Aug 21, 2023
Narrow track cars are without doubt the future of urban mobility. These cars have a very short wheel track in comparison to normal cars. Most of the international car companies have production models and prototype of narrow track cars. Some examples are N issan Land Glider, Nissan Pivo, Honda 3R-C, etc.
The objective of this project work is to successfully develop a design of a tilting mechanism for a narrow tilting car. The mechanism is to be reliable, simple, cost-effective and practically feasible. The aim of this tilting mechanism is to provide banking to the car on unbanked curves, so as to enable added threshold speed on curves in comparison to a narrow non-tilting car. This system is also supposed to enhance passenger comfort as the side force felt by passengers in a car taking a turn is comparatively less in a tilting car. Also in our purpose is the fabrication of a mini-prototype -a remote controlled toy car-to demonstrate the tilting in real world.
The methodology adopted to use standard and presently used components in design rather than to design all components from ground up. The advantage of this method is that, you do not have to spend ridiculous amount and time in testing the integrity of each part as they have already proved their worth in real world applications.
Tilting trains are today common in Europe and Japan . These trains are rail-running, they have very high curve velocities. Inorder to enable trains, to negotiate curves at high speeds, tracks are slightly banked (upto 11 degrees). But these trains are too fast, and it is not possible to tilt track beyond a limit because trains also pass along these curves really slowly at times.
Tilting trains are an optimum solution for this problem. These types of train, tilts the body on the curve, this in a sort enables faster curve threshold speed and increased passenger comfort. The figure below shows two tilting mechanisms used in trains.
fig.3
These type of cars are a new species, but their number is fast increasing. These cars tilt about their rear wheels. Either there can be two wheels at the rear like the carver. Which has two wheels at the rear and the car body tilts about the rear wheels. Steering is done using front single wheel.
This tilting mechanism if successful should dramatically increase the maximum speed in curves. This should also provide the advantages of increased passenger comfort and handling
