Post-critical behaviour of the powerslide motion

Abstract

It is a challenge to control the vehicle motion when tyre forces at the rear axle are saturated and the sideslip angle of the vehicle is large. At the steady-state cornering condition called powerslide or drifting, the front wheels are steered to the outside of the curve, and the corresponding equilibrium is unstable. While previous and ongoing research concentrates above all on different stabilisation approaches, the post-critical behaviour is given attention in this study. Based on the nonlinear system equations of a basic two-wheel vehicle and brush tyre model, it is found that for a range of constant steering angles and constant drive torques at the rear driven wheels, the vehicle motion and states converge to a steady-state with a small radius of curvature or to a stable limit cycle orbiting an unstable equilibrium.