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Old 15 Aug 2002, 03:59 (Ref:358072)   #1
Suresh
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Traction Control

Hi all

Need to know how traction control works, just dont seem to understand, how one wheel can spin faster than the other and why we need traction control. I have never driven an automobile and I am no techie, so explanations in English would be the best.

thanks all.

regds
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Old 15 Aug 2002, 14:13 (Ref:358362)   #2
Mackmot
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when a driver drives out of a corner and puts his foot on the accelerator too quickly the rear wheels spin because there is more power than the amount of grip. This causes the car to lose grip at the rear and therefore slide.

Traction control measures the speeds of each wheel and if the rear wheels are spinning too fast then it cuts the engine until the wheels are travelling at the right speed.
In F1 they have more advanced systems where intead of just cutting the engines, they control the throttle digitally. so the driver just puts his foot down and the traction control puts on the throttle at the correct speed.
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Old 15 Aug 2002, 14:34 (Ref:358374)   #3
james_williams
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To follow on from Mackmot, there are wheel speed sensors on each of the 4 wheels. The computer measures the speed of the front wheels and the speed of the rear wheels. When the rear wheels are spinning faster than the front (In the case of a rear wheel drive car) the traction control will cut in as described by Mackmot.

The trend of going to digitally controling the throttle is preffered because the torque from the engine can be optimised, therefore giving optimum acceleration out of the corners and off the line.
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Old 19 Aug 2002, 02:19 (Ref:360827)   #4
boyracer
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Well said everbody, however I wish to add a piece regarding road car traction control.
How cen one wheel spin faster than the other ? If you consider a rear wheel drive car turning a corner, the inside rear (and front) wheels are following a different path to the outside wheels. In fact the outside wheels have to travel a longer distance than the inside wheels and do it in the same time as the inner wheels. There is gearing in the differential to cope with this (I won't explain that here, you asked about traction control) and that is how one wheel may spin faster than the other. People have invented many types of systems to overcome this problem, as due to those damn physics laws, the wheel with the less laoding/weight will get the most power (not good for a racing car wanting to go round a corner as fast as possible).
In a rear wheel drive car traction control is simple enough as via the wheel speed sensors the computer can reference the front wheel speed against the rear wheel speed. If the rear wheels are spinning faster than the front wheels, traction control will be activated.
Most racecars use the systems previously described (ie throttle control), on a road car it's a bit cruder than that. The wheel speed sensors that they use are generally also used for the ABS system. Thus for reasons of cost and practicality, the ABS motor is used to do all the work. In which case the wheel spinning the faster simplly as the brake applied to it. This is the same as increasing the wheel loading thus power is diverted to the wheel with grip. All of these calculations take place within microseconds. The disadvantage of this sort of system is the huge amount of heat that can be put into the brakes.
Hope this has helped, if not, I apoligise for confusing the issue.
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