Ackerman, Toe and a Few Other Random Thoughts The diagram below outlines the important geometry in determining

the motions of the steer wheels in a vehicle that uses Ackerman steering geometry. Ackerman is an interesting problem because it is dynamic. That is to say that we have two components moving together the left and right steering knuckles, but the relationship between their motions changes as we move them. This is a real head scratcher. Its a bit like having a bowling ball in a dark room and throwing other bowling balls in an attempt to locate it by listening for an impact. Every time you find the ball by crashing into it, it moves and again dont know where it is.

D King Pin Center to Center Distance

Tie Rod Length B

Ackerman Angle

RAA

Wheel Base

Luckily we have some mathematical voodoo that can help us figure it out. Lets look at the important distances and angles. The two most fundamental distances are the wheel base of the car and the kingpin center to center distance. If we draw two lines representing the wheelbase and the distance from the cars center line to one of the king pins, we can make a triangle. By design, the line that goes through the centers of the Ackerman arm forms the hypotenuse of this triangle. See below.

King Pin Center to Center Distance 2

C Ackerman Angle

Wheelbase

Note that the angle with its vertex at A is 90 degrees by design, unless the vehicle has been crashed. If this angle experiences an unplanned adjustment due to an impact, the car will dog track. This can be checked using a tape measure and comparing distances from side to side. Also note that the line that forms the Ackerman angle with the hypotenuse is parallel with the thrust line, again by definition. Because of this, we can say that angle B and the Ackerman angle are similar, so if we know one, we know the other. But angle B isnt too hard to come up with. Recall that the tangent function gives the ratio between the opposite side and the adjacent side of the triangle. So TAN Angle B = king pin center to center distance / 2 Wheelbase The problem is that we know the distances and are trying to find angle B. We need the inverse function ARCTAN. Rearranging, we get: ARCTAN king pin center to center distance / 2 = Angle B Wheelbase We can pick distances, turn the crank and find Angle B and by extension, the Ackerman Angle. For example, lets choose a wheel base of 72 and a king pin to king pin distance of 36. The formula would look as follows:

ARCTAN

36 / 2 72

= Angle B

Plugging the number into a calculator or Excel, or looking up in a table, ARCTAN (.25) = 14.036 So, the Ackerman Angle is 14.036 degrees. We can use this to find the length of the tie rod.
D King Pin Center to Center Distance C

Tie Rod Length

14.036
A B

RAA

Wheel Base

To find the length of the tie rod, we can decompose the trapezoid ABCD into a rectangle and two triangles.
D

B
14.036 Y

A
A B

If you think logically about the diagram above, the length of the tie rod (segment BC in the drawing) is equal to the king pin to king pin center distance minus distance Y on each side. So, what is distance Y? To find out, you have to pick an Ackerman Arm Radius. You may choose this by purchasing a standard Ackerman arm out of a catalog, or you may design your own. Either way, it is what we might refer to as a drawing board problem, meaning that basically this is a parameter that the engineer chooses by his gut. Lets pick 6 to make life easy. So, how long is distance Y? Well, recall that the SIN of an angle is the ratio between the side opposite the angle and the hypotenuse. In shorthand it looks as follows. SIN 14.036 = Y/6 As you know, the name of the game in Algebra is getting the variable by itself, so 6 * SIN 14.036 = Y You can look SIN 14.036 up in a table, or punch it up on a calculator, giving you: 6 * .243 = Y A few Dazzling Algebraic Contortions, And: 1.445 = Y

So, the tie rod is 1.445 inches shorter on the bottom and 1.445 inches shorter on the top than the kingpin center to center distance. Expressed mathematically: LT = DKC 2*RAA*SIN Ackerman Angle Where: LT is the length of the tie rod DKC is the distance between king pins center to center RAA is the radius of the Ackerman Arm Plugging in our numbers LT = 36 2*6*SIN 14.036 Looking up the SIN value LT = 36 2*6*.243 Turning the crank LT = 33.084 So, for a car configured as this one is, the tie rod needs to be 33.084 from the center of one rod end to the center of the other. Weve figured out all of the static values. Now the real fun begins. Lets contemplate a turn as diagrammed in red to the right. Suppose that D the Ackerman arm labeled AB steers 20 degrees to the left as shown. What C angle does the other Ackerman arm transect? You might think 20 degrees, Something but this would result in the steering wheels being parallel in a turn, which less than 20 would be unsatisfactory as we discussed in the previous packet. In reality, because the car pictured is turning to the left, the right Ackerman arm (CD) needs to steer something less than 20 degrees. But how much less? This becomes a moving target. I tried a lot of high flutin mathematical tricks until I discovered a rather straightforward way to attack this. Let us D C AA consider a line drawn diagonally from point D to B. This creates three angles that add together to give the B angle of the wheel that pivots at point D. Well call A the first angle K, the second angle (pronounced k gamma), and the third angle is of course, the 20 Ackerman angle. Now we can set to work on determining each. If you think about angle k, we can determine it because for any steer angle, we know the positions of the ends of the diagonal line. If we assigned point A the coordinate of 0,0 then point D would have the coordinates Kingpin Center to Center Distance,0. In the B
A

our case specifically point Ds coordinates would be 36,0. Point Bs coordinates take a little bit more elbow grease to find. We can calculate its locations with the following formulae: Point Bs X coordinate = RAA * COS(AA + SAL) Point Bs Y coordinate = RAA * SIN(AA + SAL) Where: RAA is the Ackerman Arm Radius AA is the Ackerman Angle SAL is the steering angle of the left wheel. Zero degrees is straight ahead. Positive values are a left turn, negative values are a right turn.
D

Plugging in our numbers for a 20 left turn Point Bs X coordinate = 6 * COS(14.036 + 20) Point Bs Y coordinate = 6 * SIN(14.036 + 20) Jumping through a few hoops Point Bs X coordinate = 4.972 Point Bs Y coordinate = 3.358 So, the coordinates of Point B at a 20 left turn are 4.972,3.358. We can project straight to the left of point B and straight up from point A to create a new point called point E. Because we projected straight left and straight up, the angle at E is by definition 90. Also, because point E falls on segment AD, we can calculate distance DE with the formula: DE = AD AE Plugging in our numbers DE = 36 3.358
4.972

AA D C

3.358

Crunching the numbers DE = 32.642

Now that we know EB and ED, we can find the length of BD because it is a hypotenuse of the triangle formed. Using Pythagorean Theorem:

BD =

(EB2 + (DE)2

Plugging our numbers in BD = (32.642)2 + (4.972)2 BD = 33.019 Furthermore, because we know the sides of the triangle we can determine angle k in the following manner: TAN k = EB/ED Of course, were trying to find k, so lets get that by itself by taking the ARCTAN ARCTAN (EB/ED) = k Plugging in our numbers ARCTAN (4.972/32.642) = k Some mathematical acrobatics and 8.661 = k So now that we know angle k and the Ackerman angle, the problem is two thirds licked. All we have left is to find angle (pronounced gamma). Note that is included in triangle BDC. Lets think about what we know about this triangle. We know that side DC is the length of the Ackerman arm, which we chose to be 6. We know that side CB is the length of the tie rod, which we calculated earlier to be 33.084. Finally, we know the distance BD, which we determined using Pathagorean Theorem to be 33.019. So we have a triangle and we know the lengths of each of the three sides. Luckily, there is a somewhat abstract relationship between the sides of non-right triangles called law of cosines. It can be expressed a number of ways, but we will use the permutation shown below. COS = A2 + B2 C2 2AB Per usual, we are trying to get the thing we dont know by itself, so well need to beat this up a little bit to make it useful. Rearranging gives:
3.358

AA D C

4.972

ARCCOS A2 + B2 C2 = 2AB Plugging in our numbers ARCCOS (33.019)2 + (6)2 (33.084)2 = 2(33.019)(6) Crunching the numbers 85.411 = Now if we add up angle k, and the Ackerman angle, well have the tires steer angle from the line that connects the two kingpins. To get the steer angle, we have to subtract 90. The formula is: Steer Angle = k + + Ackerman Angle - 90 Plugging our numbers in Steer Angle = 8.661 + 85.411 + 14.036 - 90 Turning the crank: Steer Angle = 18.108 As with any engineering math, we must ask if this is a reasonable number. Lets think about it. The car is executing a left turn. The left front wheel is steered 20 to the left. The right wheel is tracing a larger arc, and therefore should have a lesser steer angle. In short the left side steering angle is 20 and the right side should be something less than 20. Weve passed that test. Additionally, experience on real cars on the alignment rack indicates that these numbers are reasonable. Attached you will find an Excel file that will do the heavy lifting for you. Good luck!