MOOC: Vehicle Dynamics

[Prof. Meywerk]

I want to offer a free, non-commercial, english online course (a so called MOOC: Massive Open Online Course); topic is: Vehicle Dynamics; I think it will be for those FSAE team members helpful, who have no such course in their university or their college; if you are interested, you can vote for the course under http://bit.ly/ZyvT3y
If there are enough interested students the course probably starts in spring 2014.
Some of the questions you will be asked by the judges during the event you will be able to answer if you have visited the course;
Exmples from FSAE Design Judging (http://www.sae.org/students/fsaedesignjudge.pdf )
The judges want to know how you developed your vehicle. … Do you understand the laws of physics behind their operation…. How did your theory compare to actual results?
Deadline: only 6 hour left; yesterday I have lost pole position in ranking of the votes

[Prof. Meywerk]

Originally posted by spam2128:
Harry Potter and Issues in International Politics with the most votes http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Vehicle Dynamics was until yesterday on pole position of the engineering MOOCs; I hope, it will again on pole position in a few hours http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[BillCobb]

The 'car' is NOT an unknown technical being. It is easily described by an array of non-linear differential equations that in simplest form can be solved algebraicly. They also reduce to a simpler form if the 'rice cah' (did I say that correctly?) is the only model being studied.

In my obsessed opinion, the best student understanding comes from the description of a typical popular production passenger car (let's say a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry or a VW Jetta (you get the idea), there is plenty of K&C data available for the begging, lots of tire, mass amd inertia parameters and they have power assisted steering. The reason to include power steering in the study is because you will find out how a vehicle really maneuvers. Its NOT from steer ANGLE. Applying open and closed loop inputs (not steer angle but steer and aero and road load moments) to models containing all of these elements and producing results with the same traits as the real deal will likely get you a worthwhile job in the industry that will produce a good retirement using the 4% rule on your IRA.

Otherwise, you will never know 'why' you get the results in question and you will not be able to synthesis the vehicle dynamics being asked for by your business model. And worse, you will probably wind up being drawn into the hand-waving and smoke and mirrors gurus.

Now go make your block diagrams, fill in the characteristic descriptions and turn Simulink loose in the time and frequency domain.

Now that's a course worth attending ! Be careful now, because I'll be asking some questions that only a Vehicle Dynamicist can answer...