Development of a new methodology for vehicle steering system inspection

Abstract

A vehicles steering system, which plays a fundamental role in road safety, is nowadays one of the items that are checked during the Periodic Motor Vehicle Inspection (PMVI) in all developed countries, such as the European Union or the United States of America. This kind of inspection is usually done by means of a device called a sideslip tester, along with an operator's visual inspection. Nevertheless, this method shows some serious problems, and clearly seems to need improvement. It does not take into account important parameters such as the steering geometry or vehicle weight and, moreover, it does not provide a clear rejection criteria for inspectors.

The main aim of this research is to set up a new inspection methodology for a vehicle steering system in a PMVI, taking all variables that are now ignored into account, in order to avoid dangerous situations during driving and to provide the inspectors with clear and objective rejection criteria. This paper presents the implementation and design issues related to the development of the new device. Also, some experimental data will be shown in order to validate the developed procedure.

Keywords

steering geometry periodic motor vehicle inspection wheel deviation road safety

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