Dynamic Load Transfer

In car racing our aim is simple - to drive around the race track in the least possible time,
maximising the forces associated with acceleration, braking and cornering. While we do
this, the race car is experiencing forces in all directions, which result in weight transfer
to and from all four tyres in a very complex manner. Race drivers attempt to build and
let go these weight transfers progressively, so as to maximise tyre grip.

The "dynamic load transfer" results in ever changing vertical loadings on the tyres,
which are additive (+ or -) to static load (due to the force of gravity), and aero forces
(lift or down force). The tyres only see total vertical load, wherever it comes
from. So all the variables of our car set up, driver inputs and external effects end
up as just the one dynamic vertical load on the tyre. The variations in tyre load are
large and significant any way you look at it - raw numbers or percentage change. In
so far as our springs, anti-roll bars and shocks influence weight transfer at any point in
time, it is clear that they work together to produce a single load at each of the tyres..
As race car supension tuners, we are vitally interested in one aspect of dynamic load
transfer - the re-distibution of static loads on the tyres, when the car is in motion.
We could improve the handling performance of our car by changing to a better tyre,
taking weight out of the car, optimising the track, or adding serious amounts of aero
dynamic downforce. But these will be fixed pretty much by the race rules or the
designer of our car. So this leaves us the suspension bits to play with, plus whatever
aero adjustment we have.

We only consider chassis movements and forces generated by low speed acceleration
of the vehicle mass - the accelerations of braking, cornering and power application.
High speed movements of the wheels, where tyres momentarily loose grip, or
complete loss of grip when the vehicle is sliding, will tend to nullify the effects we are
talking about. However, suspension development is often focussed on allowing the
driver to maintain balance in the face of external upsets - eg rally and speedway often
run on very poor surfaces, sometimes road race cars are specially developed to ride
the curbs.
Total Weight Transfer (TWT).
Before we start tweaking the suspension adjustments, we need to recognise that not all
the weight transfer goes via the springs, shocks and anti-roll bars. We'll also get a
little insight into what roll centres we might run on our race car.
A certain amount of the weight transfer happens almost immediately as the forces
generated by the acceleration of the vehicle mass feed directly through the suspension

links to the tyres. In roll, two such weight transfer are usually considered - unsprung
weight transfer and sprung weight transferred directly through the roll centres. In
general, these weight transfers will be minimised in the design. The greater amount of
sprung weight transfer follows, as the accelerative forces feed through the springs,
anti-roll bars and shocks (our major area of interest). Each of the weight transfers can
be calculated as follows:Lateral force times lever arm (or moment), divided by the track - all done quite readily
within a good suspension program, such as SusProg3D.
Unsprung weight transfer (WTU): In roll, weight transfer of unsprung weight
is seperate for the front and rear suspensions of the race car. In a good design, it
should only be a small component of TWT. But it is clear that a big change in the
proportion of front vs rear unsprung weight will change the balance of the car.
The following weight transfers apply only to the sprung mass of the race car:Sprung weight transfer via the roll centres (WTRC): Again, weight transfer
is seperate for front and rear. It can be varied simply by raising or lowering the roll
centre relative to the ground. So a ride height adjustment to your race car, or a roll
centre geometry change is a very valid tuning device. Particularly for speedway,
where higher roll centres can work, and off-set roll centres are used. For road racing,
roll centres as low as possible (considering other key aims of the suspension
geometry) might be the best way to go.
Sprung weight transfer via the sprung mass (WTS): We should not attempt to
calculate this weight transfer seperately for front and rear. The chassis is a rigid
structure which rolls around an axis between the front and rear roll centres. So the
sprung mass weight transfer is based on a mass whose centre is the centre of gravity
of the entire sprung mass, the mean roll centres and mean track. This weight transfer
is resisted by the springs, anti-roll bars and shocks, and forms the basis of the wheel
pair stiffness theory we look at below.
So TWT = (WTU-F + WTU-R) + (WTRC-F +WTRC-R) + WTS
where the F & R suffixes represent weight transfers calculated for front and rear
seperately.

Key Point - Sprung Weight Transfer

The two main methods of transferring sprung weight, via the roll centres or via
the springs, exactly counter balance each other.

High roll centres leave less weight to be transferred via the springs and vice versa.
We want our springs, anti-roll bars and shocks to work, so we can tune the set up.
This means generally low roll centres. If the roll centre was at ground level, weight
transfer directly through the roll centres would be zero, and all the unsprung weight
transfer would go through the springs, anti-roll bars and shocks.
I am indebted to Dennis Jansen, a student in vehicle dynamics, for pointing out the
effect of roll centre below ground level. Now, weight transfer via the roll centres is
negative. This means there is a component of weight transfer that actually goes from
the outside wheel to the inside wheel. This weight transfer in reverse would have to
help turn in, but of course, the overly low roll centre could have other, less
advantageous effects. In a practical design, a roll centre a little below ground level
would reduce the unsprung weight transfer (there would not actually be any negative
weight transfer overall), and the weight transfer through the springs would be
correspondingly increased.

It's interesting to consider "If I run higher roll centres, couldn't I run softer springs for
increased tyre compliance (more grip)?" The problem is you also get more scrub (track
change), which is bad for grip, and adds to wheel rate stiffness in any case. It's a
similar argument for excessive anti-squat or anti-dive. The wheel base change is not so
much of a problem, but the increase in wheel rate (reduced tyre compliance) can be
bad.

Why Do We Need to Understand Weight Transfer?

There are many we can improve improve mechanical grip, either overall, or for
understeer/oversteer balance.
If our car had no suspension and no assymetrical set up, we could use tyre technology,
temps and pressures, tyre stagger, steering and alignment angles, ride height, track
changes, wheel width and offset changes, front to rear weight distribution, centre of
gravity changes, differential characteristics and some others. We could think mostly
about tyre grip. We wouldn't really need a comprehensive weight transfer theory.
But if we started to play with static cross weight, or add suspension to our car, our
predictions of tyre grip and resulting effect on understeer/ oversteer balance become
more difficult.

At the race track, we are looking at a particular movement of the car. We make a
change to the suspension set up. Tyre loading, and therefore the grip of the tyres, will
change. We want to know what the changes to tyre loadings are, so we can predict the
likely change to understeer/oversteer balance.

The suspension set up has another very important role - optimising mechanical tyre
grip. We cover the theory briefly in the next section, so that you can appreciate other
set up requirements of the car, and differentiate them from weight transfer issues.
Mechanical Tyre Grip Theory
Tyre grip depends on the ability of the tyre rubber to interlock with the grain of the
road surface. The surface of the road causes continuous small movements of the
suspension, and variation in load on the tyre. For maximum grip, we need to
minimise this variation. Grip increases with suspension pressure. We want to push
the tyre into the road surface harder & longer. The suspension pressure results from
the sum of the tyre, spring, and anti-roll bar rates and shock loading, and could also be
influenced by the torsional stiffness of the car.
So we have two competing requirements here. If we run spring rates as soft as
possible, the lower suspension frequency (the suspension moves up and down so
many times per second) will allow the tyre to be pressed into the road longer. But
harder spring rates will press the tyre into the road harder. The best solution can be
hard to find. Optimum grip requirements will change with each race car, tyre and
road surface. But the trend is to run softer springs, and reset the shock to maintain the
pressure on the tyre.
The shock must also control the rebound of the suspension very accurately so as to
reduce the amplitude in these small displacements of the suspension. It appears that
only an expensive racing shock is precise enough to do this over a race distance. We
discuss this further in the shock theory section, and in a yet to be written tyre theory
section.
Describing Chassis and Suspension Movements of the Race Car
When a wheel moves up relative to the chassis platform, we say that wheel is moving
in bump. When a wheel moves down relative to the chassis platform we say that
wheel is moving in rebound.
The four modes of chassis and/or suspension movement are:Heave:
Pitch:
Roll:
Warp:

All four wheels move up or down equally.

Front wheels move up as rear wheels moves down, or vice versa.
Chassis leans to one side or the other.
Diagonal movement. Front axle tilts one way and rear axle tilts
the other way. Note that if all four wheels are on a flat surface,

warp movement is bump and rebound on one diagonal and no

movement of the wheels on the other diagonal.
Note the freedom of movement of the chassis in the vertical plane. There is no
fixed pivot to precisely control to roll or pitch. However, the chassis is precisely
controlled in the horizontal plane, which is why we get dynamic load transfer. This
will be obvious to Engineers from their first studies in vector mechanics.
Please take the time to be clear about this point. When weight comes off a wheel
the chassis is free to move up, subject to the position the spring will settle at to
support the new weight. Equally, when weight comes onto a wheel, the chassis is
free to move down until the spring supports the new weight. The roll centre
moves up and down with the chassis as required to accomodate the movement of
the springs.
This point allows us to develop just about all the important theory relating to weight
transfer.
In race car suspension set up, we are interested in all four suspension movements, and
some combinations of heave, pitch, roll and warp. This looks complex, but we can
build a viable model to deal with it. Note again that we only deal with re-distribution
of the static weight on the tyres. Forces from dips, rises and bankings in the road, or
from aero downforce can be added later.
We need concepts to help us describe and understand the modes of movement of the
chassis and suspension. The first is wheel stiffness.

Key Point - Wheel Stiffness

We will use wheel stiffness to help us describe the comparative amount and speed
of weight transfers for the various modes of movement.
When one of the wheels move in bump, it will be resisted by the spring and anti-roll
bar. The resistance force of the the spring and anti-roll bar combined gets greater as
the wheel moves further ie the force isposition sensitive. We define this contributor
to "stiffness" at that wheel, as the wheel rate. Tyres have a stiffness rate, and
contribute to wheel rate as well. Softer wheel rate allows more movement of the
chassis, stiffer wheel rate restricts movement of the chassis.
Wheel stiffness in rebound is a little more involved. As weight is transferred away
from the wheel, the chassis is free to move upward, subject to the wheel rate. Softer

wheel rate will again allow more movement of the chassis, until all the weight is
transferred. Stiffer wheel rate again restricts chassis movement.
We'll refer to the total compliance of the suspension when subject to the force of
wheel movement as the wheel stiffness. Other contributors to wheel stiffness are the
suspension geometry, and the shock absorbers moving in bump or rebound.
The affect of suspension geometry on wheel stiffness is discussed in the footnote to
this page - a side issue for now. However, the shock absorbers' slow speed stiffness is
vitally important in our understanding of weight transfer. In modern race cars, the
shock absorbers contribute significantly to wheel stiffness. This is the reason why
we emphasise the role of the spring/anti-roll bar/shock combination throughout this
web site.
As we said, wheel rates for springs and roll bars are position sensitive - force
increases with compression of the suspension. The car rolls more with increasing
corner speed. This is obvious, but important when you want to add in the effect of
slow speed damping of the shocks. Shocks arevelocity sensitive, so will only add or
subtract to wheel stiffness, when the suspension is moving. The shock force is
relatively constant for any given velocity - builds fast as the suspension starts to
move, and drops away quickly as the suspension stops moving. In our shock page, we
build a model for tuning dynamic load transfer with shocks.
Relative Wheel Pair Stiffness
"Relative stiffness" is our second concept for understanding the distribution of
dynamic weight transfer in racing cars. Wheel pairs transfer weight in proportion
to their total wheel stiffness. ie the combined stiffness of the wheel gaining weight,
and the wheel loosing the weight.
Old "distribution of roll stiffness" theory only deals effectively with the roll mode. You
know. If we increase the proportion of front roll resistance the car might understeer, and
vice versa for oversteer. But my aim here is to generalise the discussion, so we can
predict the effects of set up changes during all modes of chassis movement, in any
combination, using any of the devices at our disposal to make the changes.

If front wheel pair stiffness is greater than rear wheel pair stiffness, we say the car is
front stiff. The idea is to concisely convey how the stiffnesses of wheel pairs
compare.
You can see that a car could be relatively stiff in any combination - front stiff, rear
stiff, inside or outside stiff (relative to the direction the car is turning), or diagonally
stiff either way.

The springs and anti-roll bars add to wheel pair stiffness in both bump and
rebound.
A softer spring transfers less weight and promotes more movement of the chassis, at
that corner, in all four modes of movement. We are only re-distributing the static
weight, so there must be another wheel pair to take up extra weight transfer.
To highlight the role of the spring in rebound it usefull to think about the weight jackers
in a speedway car. If we have jacked a lot of weight into one of the inside wheels, we
could fit a softer spring at that corner, so it would transfer less weight, hold more weight
at that corner. With the car back on the scales, we could even up the static weight a bit.
The anti-roll bar increases wheel stiffness on the inside wheel, but is working in the
opposite direction to the spring. If the anti-roll bar is too stiff relative to the spring, it
could limit droop travel, and unload the wheel. This is why we cannot use too much
anti-roll bar on the driven wheels.
It's interesting to think about an asymetrical sway bar set up - shorter lever on one side,
longer on the other. Weight transfer will be the same as for non-asymetrical set up. But
wheel rate will increase on the short lever side (less movement in bump),
and decrease on the long lever side (more movement in rebound).

Shock absorbers add to wheel pair stiffness in both bump and rebound.
Unlike springs and anti-roll bars, the shock can have different stiffness in bump and
rebound. Makes you think about the tuning possibilities, doesn't it? Shocks are very
important in control of the chassis platform and promoting mechanical grip of the
tyres.
Describing the Weight Transfer
We need a way of visualising weight transfer, so that we can see how how set up
changes will contribute to understeer or oversteer. Our goal is to maximise overall grip,
and make the vehicle respond predictably to driver inputs. We talk about understeer
or oversteer (tight or loose) in the various phases of corner entry, mid corner and corner
exit. For instance,we could could loosen the car on entry for better turn in, and tighten it
on exit, so the driver can get the power on earlier.
We want to know what is happening to our car during cornering - turning in and trail
braking, steady state, and accelerating through the apex and out of the corner. The
driver feels this as handling balance variation. The car could understeer more as grip
deteriorates mid corner (say if carrying a lot of car speed), and oversteer as grip
deteriorates on exit (say if driver accelerates earlier and/or harder).

Key Point - Dynamic Wedge

Our key concept in dynamic weight transfer is dynamic wedge. Positive wedge,
or wedge, is defined as greater inside percentage weight at the rear, compared to
the front. That is, the inside rear wheel weight divided by total rear weight,
expressed as a percentage, is greater than the equivalent calculation for the front
wheels. The rear wheels are more equally loaded than the front wheels. The car will
have greater tendency to understeer. Negative wedge is the opposite - greater inside
percentage at the front compared to the rear. The car will have greater tendency to
oversteer.
We are considering the redistribution of the static wheel loads. So the load on all four
wheels always equals the static weight of the vehicle.
For example, if we stiffen the front roll bar and make the car front stiff in roll, the car
wedges itself more as it corners harder - more understeer, tighter. If the car is rear
stiff in roll, the car de-wedges itself as it corners harder - more oversteer, looser. Note
the description in dynamic terms.
A usefull quick way to think about wedge is to consider inside weight, at one end of
the car or the other. You could say "I have increased inside rear weight" ie wedged the
car (moved the set up in the direction of understeer). Conceptually, it's easy to follow
because the increased inside weight at the rear will improve grip at the rear. American
Race Car Engineers talk about increased or decreased weight across the front of the
car. This is equally valid. By definition, if you have increased inside front weight
percentage, you must have decreased rear weight percentage.
Dynamic Wedge for Roll, Pitch, Warp and Heave
To determine wedge in roll we compare the the stiffness of front and rear wheel
pairs. Look at the direction the weight is moving - outward or inward relative to the
corner. Weight will be transferred to or from the inside wheels in proportion to wheel
pair stiffness. Compare inside weight percentages. If the car is front stiff, it will
wedge in initial roll, and de-wedge in roll back. Vice versa for rear stiff.
Consider pitch the same as roll turned through 90 degrees. Now we look at the
relative stiffness of left and right wheel pairs. For road racing, right and left wheel
pairs will generally be equally stiff, so pitch,by itself will not wedge the car.
But our speedway car could be left stiff or right stiff depending on our requirements.
Look at the direction of the weight transfer. Forward for forward pitch (braking), or
rearward for rearward pitch (acceleration). The stiffer side will transfer the greater

weight percentage. If the car is outside stiff, the car will wedge in forward pitch and
de-wedge in rearward pitch. If the car is inside stiff, the car will de-wedge in forward
pitch and wedge in rearward pitch.
If need be, take time to confirm what is happening here. Try it on a piece of paper.
Road racers too. We need it for shock tuning.
Warp movements seriously wedge or de-wedge the car.
On a narrow road course, accelerating out of a tight corner and over the crown of the
road, the inside front and outside rear will be receiving load, and wheels on the other
diagonal unloading. Looking at the directions of weight transfer across the car, the car
is de-wedging, big oversteer. To tune for this we would need to reduce wheel stiffness
at all four corners. We would not want to do this, because we have optimised stiffness
for the important roll and pitch modes. So our driver would have to make the best of it.
He could enter the corner a little earlier. On exit, use the crown to help turn the car
before full acceleration. If there is enough road on the exit, he could try entering the
corner very late, get most of the cornering done, accelerate hard off the apex and
balance the car on the throttle going over the crown in the road. With the late turn in, he
might leave the door open for an inside pass. But the car inside could get caught with
oversteer going over the crown, leaving our driver a perfect opportunity for a switch
back re-passing move.

Warp movements on a flat surface become pure weight transfer between diagonally
opposite wheels. We can analyse these as a combination of pitch and roll.
Heave movements will not wedge the car. But combination roll and heave will.
This must be a big part of suspension set up for stadium truck racing, and in rallying. .

Dynamic Wedge in Braking, Cornering and Acceleration - Combination Roll and

Pitch.
This is the "guts" of weight transfer as it applies to race car chassis and suspension
tuning.
You can add pitch and roll weight transfers to look at the resulting wedge of the race
car.
Click here(wedge example),and see how the driver inputs of braking, cornering and
acceleration have a massive affect on wedge, and therefore car balance. If the
discussion has made sense so far, it is definitely worth a look.
Notes:

1. In suspension tuning for weight transfer, we can look at changes to springs, antiroll bars and shocks, height of front and rear roll centres, and possibly anti-dive and
anti-squat. See shock tuning page for shocks.
2. We must know the directions of weight transfer in the vehicle to make a correct
analysis. So the driver and race engineer must be clear about the movement of the
car they are influencing. If the driver changes his style, the movement might be
different. Any change unrelated to a particular movement will only be guess work. A
change for one movement of the car means changes for other movements of the car,
for better or worse. The set up is an un-ending compromise.
3. Wheel stiffness affects the speed at which wedge or de-wedge occurs during
transitions. Particularly important for shock tuning.
4. We can analyse all asymetrical set ups for speedway, and we need the same theory
for road racing, to analyse handling transitions.
5. If we had high level data acquisistion, we could carry out a detailed analysis to
optimise the weight transfer in the areas where the driver had problems.
6. We need chassis and suspension components stiff enough and the operation of the
suspension smooth, so the intended weight transfers can take place.
Shock Absorbers and Dynamic Wedge.
Dynamic wedge helps us to consider the effects of shock absorber changes. As
indicated earlier in this article, shocks are velocity sensitive ie they only affect wheel
stiffness while the suspension is moving. To affect handling balance, we only consider
low speed damping, say around 0 to 2 inches/sec. The feature of the low speed
damping is that it comes on straight away and stays fairly constant (controlled by a port
in the shock piston)- not building like the anti-roll bar load. So playing with low speed
damping might have quite a nice effect on transients - eg initial turn in, and feeding the
power in for corner exit. If we make low speed damping more rear stiff, we could dewedge the car on corner entry, and increase wedge for corner exit. For a description of
this, click here(shock example).

.........GO TO LOAD TRANSFER PAGE 2

Footnote:
In pitch, anti-dive and anti-squat suspension geometry add to wheel pair stiffness.
In roll, any change in track dimension (track variation, or tyre scrub), resulting from
the design of the suspension geometry adds to wheel stiffness. The affect on tyre grip
is all bad. In modern formula race car design, tyre scrub is reduced to a minimum, at
the expense of other design criteria, such as optimising camber curves. In older
designs, we live with it.