Increase of the Overturning Immunity of an Electric Tricycle

Abstract

The main topic of this paper is the presentation of the keynote of implementation of the newly designed steering mechanism for a tricycle with the electric powertrain with two wheels on the rear axle. On the present, three-wheeled road vehicles with two wheels on the rear axle are wholly dependent on the standard steering mechanism, which main task is the rotation of a front wheel about the steering axis in order to ensure the change of direction in curves. These vehicles are characterised by the relatively poor overturning immunity in a curve. Therefore, in our workplace the new steering mechanism was developed, which is intended to be mounted just in such three-wheeled vehicles construction. The main principle feature of our innovative steering mechanism consists in the additional lateral movement of the front wheel of a vehicle, when it is driving in a curve. Thus, a tricycle using this newly designed steering system can run in curves at greater speed and driving is safer. In this paper, there are presented the working principle of the newly designed steering system as well as dynamic analyses of a three-wheeled vehicle when it is running in curves.