rack and pinion calculations

[Ruchir Gupta]

Hi
im working on the rack and pinion setup for our car ...and have got the rack travel for one pinion revolution as 63.7 mm which will be equal to the circumference of the pinion pitch diameter.
How do i proceed with further calculations for design.....

[Ruchir Gupta]

Hi
im working on the rack and pinion setup for our car ...and have got the rack travel for one pinion revolution as 63.7 mm which will be equal to the circumference of the pinion pitch diameter.
How do i proceed with further calculations for design.....

[Mikey Antonakakis]

I'm not going to pretend to have a lot of knowledge of this subject... But I'm assuming you're trying to figure out what overall steering ratio you want? Figure out what the greatest steering wheel angle the drivers are okay with is, the greatest steering force, greatest wheel angle, etc... If you have a good tire model or something I'm sure you can figure out the torque on the wheel needed to hold it at an angle around a turn, from there you can figure out what ratio you want to keep the steering force at a manageable level. But from experience, some boundaries you wouldn't want to exceed would be making the driver have to steer hand-over hand, he shouldn't have to take his hands off of the wheel to steer. Another thing you need to consider is Ackermann, and what you want with regards to that. But that's too much for me to write about right now, I need to study.