Colbi Mehrez

The attribute pitch can be referred to bouncing a ball. In the car case, it is a different scene. Imagine driving in a metal rod into the side of a car such that it protrudes through a car from both horizontal ends. Now, if that rod is rotated clockwise or anticlockwise, the car will also rotate with that rod. That rotation is called pitch. Essentially, the car is flipping in a certain direction, clockwise or anticlockwise. One example of daily car pitch is braking. When a car is under braking, the weight of the car is transferred forward onto the front wheels. That makes the body of the car lean forward. Same with acceleration. The car leans back, transferring weight on the rear wheels. Now, pitch is important because it signifies the level of grip being given to tires on straight line actions, like the ones mentioned above.

Imagine a rear wheel drive car has practically no room for pitch. It doesn’t have pitch for even the hardest braking or the hardest acceleration. That would mean all four wheels would get equal brake power and acceleration. That would be a problem. Let’s take braking first. Because there is no forward pitch, the front wheels, which are the wheels that need the most grip while braking, won’t get the weight on the front they would require. This would mean lesser grip for the tires. This would result in a longer braking distance or even a skid. The next bit is acceleration. Suppose our notorious no – pitch car is in a drag race. With pitch, weight would be transferred to the rear wheels. This would help only if the vehicle was rear or all – wheel drive but who takes front – wheel drive vehicles to the drag strip anyway? ( Some do, but their cars are heavily modded for that ).

So, our car goes at full throttle. No weight falls on the rear. The weight is again equally distributed but not in a beneficial way. The rear tires scrabble for grip, but there is none to offer. Therefore, a half – baked run emerges. Now we know that pitch is important, let’s move to roll.

Roll is, well, roll. It is the movement of  a car’s body that defines how well a car can distribute its weight while turning. Another way it can be explained is this. Drive in another imaginary rod straight through the front of a car and let it emerge from the back. The clockwise & anticlockwise movement of the car and rod is what’s known as roll.

Roll is yet another important attribute of car physics. It does good things and bad things. Let’s start with the good stuff. Roll is just the shifting of weight in a car to the right or left. Entering a corner is one such example as a car tends to lean in the opposite direction of the turn. Doing so, it places a load on the outermost tires. If balanced, then it helps in dishing out more grip from tires. It is also beneficial in a motor sport : drifting. In a sharp turning maneuver, there is roll but it is excessive and literally swings a car into a drift.

The bad side. Roll is beneficial, but also harmful. Take for instance, a tall SUV going along a zigzag road at a high speed. Roll in this case will be so pronounced that the vehicle can tip on two wheels and topple over. It also causes uneven wear to tires and sometimes damages them. It also upsets people’s tummies. Seriously.

Drive the infamous rod into the top of a car ( third time’s the charm ). The clockwise or anticlockwise movement of rod and car is called yaw. Another definition of yaw is, well, turning. Here, yaw is nothing but a value. It has no force upon a car. Yet, it is very important for calculations. Now, when a car turns, all the wheels rotate at different speeds. For instance, the wheels of the car at the right side are rotating faster than the ones on the left side when the vehicle turns to the left.Why is because the wheels that are farthest from the inside of a curve cover more area than the wheels nearest to the inside line. This creates an imbalanced force and a vehicle turns due to that. It all happens due to differential boxes, but that’s a whole other story. That axial movement is yaw. The point is, the more the yaw, the sharper a car turns and vice versa for the smaller value.

I will end this post here. I will write more about cars and parts. Be sure to request your own posts.

Happy Driving!

Hello, I remember that excel could complete a sequence is we gave it the first elements In this case I'm writing in three different cells