Assembly (Power Steering) 1 Page Steering is the collection of components, linkages, etc. which allows any vehicle (car, motorcycle, bicycle) to follow the desired course. An exception is the case of rail transport by which rail tracks combined together with railroad switches (and also known as 'points' in British English) provide the steering function. The primary purpose of the steering system is to allow the driver to guide the vehicle.
Introduction The most conventional steering arrangement is to turn the front wheels using a hand–operated steering wheel which is positioned in front of the driver, via the steering column, which may contain universal joints (which may also be part of the collapsible steering column design), to allow it to deviate somewhat from a straight line. Other arrangements are sometimes found on different types of vehicles, for example, a tiller or rear–wheel steering. Tracked vehicles such as bulldozers and tanks usually employ differential steering — that is, the tracks are made to move at different speeds or even in opposite directions, using clutches and brakes, to bring about a change of course or direction. 2 Page Basic geometry
Caster angle θ indicates kingpin pivot line and gray area indicates vehicle's tire with the wheel moving from right to left. A positive caster angle aids in directional stability, as the wheel tends to trail, but a large angle makes steering more difficult.
Curves described by the rear wheels of a conventional automobile. While
the vehicle moves with a constant speed its inner and outer rear wheels do not. The basic aim of steering is to ensure that the wheels are pointing in the desired directions. This is typically achieved by a series of linkages, rods, pivots and gears. One of the fundamental concepts is that of caster angle – each wheel is steered with a pivot point ahead of the wheel; this makes the steering tend to be self-centering towards the direction of travel. The steering linkages connecting the steering box and the wheels usually conform to a variation of Ackermann steering geometry, to account for the fact that in a turn, the inner wheel is actually travelling a path of smaller radius than the outer wheel, so that the degree of toe suitable for driving in a straight path is not suitable for turns. The angle the wheels make with the vertical plane also influences steering 3
dynamics (see camber angle) as do the tires.
Page History The first power-steering system fitted to a production car debuted in the 1951 Chrysler Imperial, and the competition quickly followed suit. Not only did power steering do the obvious—allow the driver to steer a heavy vehicle with much less effort and greater comfort—but it also allowed engineers to improve steering response, which is how quickly the car changes direction when the driver turns the wheel. Before power assist became available, cars' steering systems had been geared so that it took many turns of the wheel to negotiate tight turns or to park. This slow gearing gave drivers more leverage against the high effort required steer the front wheels. But the advent of power steering allowed engineers to quicken the steering ratio—how much the steering wheel has to be turned relative to how much the angle of the front wheels changes—because the additional steering effort could now be offset by the new system. In fact, it was more than just offset; steering a car became nearly effortless.
Power steering
Power steering helps the driver of a vehicle to steer by directing some
of its power to assist in swiveling the steered road wheels about their steering axes. As vehicles have become heavier and switched to front wheel drive, particularly using negative offset geometry, along with increases in tire width and diameter, the effort needed to turn the wheels about their steering axis has increased, often to the point where major physical exertion would be needed were it not for power assistance. To alleviate this auto makers have developed power steering systems, or more correctly power-assisted steering, since on road-going vehicles there has to be a mechanical linkage as a fail-safe. There are two types of power steering systems: hydraulic and electric/electronic. A hydraulic-electric hybrid system is also possible. Working Principle of Hydraulic Power Assisted Steering Systems The 4
main task of a power steering system in passenger cars is to decrease
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the steering effort of the driver in certain situations such as low speed maneuvering and parking. Power steering has become a necessary component in modern cars of all sizes due to high axel weight, larger tire cross-sections and front wheel drive. In most medium and larger cars, the reduction of steering effort is accomplished by using a hydraulic system, which produces an additional torque to the torque applied by the driver. The basic principle of a hydraulic power steering system is an ordinary hydro mechanical servo parallel to a pure mechanical connection. A hydro mechanical servo is a system that copies an operator applied movement, normally with the possibility to cope with higher forces or torque. In a normal configuration of a follower servo, the force fed back to the driver is minimal. Hydraulic Power Steering: In a hydraulic power steering system, the effort required to turn the wheel of a vehicle by the rotation of the steering wheel is reduced with the help of hydraulic assistance. When the steering wheel is turned, a hydraulic pump, which draws power from the vehicle’s engine, starts to pump hydraulic fluid through the system’s lines. This high-pressure hydraulic fluid then enters a cylinder and exerts force on the cylinder piston. This piston then pushes the hydraulic fluid ahead of it through the system’s lines, which in turn exerts pressure on the rack and pinion, coupling arrangement, multiplying the input force several times and resulting in the rotation of the vehicle’s front wheels.
A hydraulic power steering (HPS) uses hydraulic pressure supplied by
an engine-driven pump to assist the motion of turning the steering wheel. Electric power steering (EPS) is more efficient than hydraulic 5
power steering, since the electric power steering motor only needs to Page
provide assistance when the steering wheel is turned, whereas the
hydraulic pump must run constantly. In EPS, the amount of assistance is easily tunable to the vehicle type, road speed, and even driver preference. An added benefit is the elimination of environmental hazard posed by leakage and disposal of hydraulic power steering fluid. In addition, electrical assistance is not lost when the engine fails or stalls, whereas hydraulic assistance stops working if the engine stops, making the steering doubly heavy as the driver must now turn not only the very heavy steering—without any help—but also the power-assistance system itself. BMW began to use rack and pinion steering systems in the 1930s, and many other European manufacturers adopted the technology. American automakers adopted rack and pinion steering beginning with the 1974 Ford Pinto. Older designs use two main principles: the worm and sector design and the screw and nut. Both types were enhanced by reducing the friction; for screw and nut it is the recirculating ball mechanism, which is still found on trucks and utility vehicles. The steering column turns a large screw which meshes with nut by recirculating balls. The nut moves a sector of a gear, causing it to rotate about its axis as the screw is turned; an arm attached to the axis of the sector moves the Pitman arm, which is connected to the steering linkage and thus steers the wheels. The recirculating ball version of this apparatus reduces the considerable friction by placing large ball bearings between the screw and the nut; at either end of the apparatus the balls exit from between the two pieces into a channel internal to the box which connects them with the other end of the apparatus, thus they are "recirculated". The recirculating ball mechanism has the advantage of a much greater mechanical advantage, so that it was found on larger, heavier vehicles while the rack and pinion was originally limited to smaller and lighter ones; due to the almost universal adoption of power steering, however, this is no longer an important advantage, leading to the increasing use of rack and pinion on newer cars. The recirculating ball design also has a perceptible lash, or "dead spot" on center, where a minute turn of the steering wheel in either direction does not move the steering apparatus; this is easily adjustable via a screw on the end of the steering box to account for wear, but it cannot be entirely eliminated because it will create excessive internal forces at other positions and the mechanism will wear very rapidly. This design is still in use in trucks and 6 Page other large vehicles, where rapidity of steering and direct feel are less important than robustness, maintainability, and mechanical advantage. The worm and sector was an older design, used for example in Willys and Chrysler vehicles, and the Ford Falcon (1960's). To reduce friction the sector is replaced by a roller or rotating pins on the rocker shaft arm.
Generally, older vehicles use the recirculating ball mechanism, and only newer vehicles use rack-and-pinion steering.[2] This division is not very strict, however, and rack-and-pinion steering systems can be found on British sports cars of the mid-1950s, and some German carmakers did not give up recirculating ball technology until the early 1990s. Other systems for steering exist, but are uncommon on road vehicles. Children's toys and go-karts often use a very direct linkage in the form of a bell crank (also commonly known as a Pitman arm) attached directly between the steering column and the steering arms, and the use of cable-operated steering linkages (e.g. the capstan and bowstring mechanism) is also found on some home-built vehicles such as soapbox cars and recumbent tricycles. 7 Page In this type of power steering system as we discussed above the hydraulic force is used to multiply the steering input force in order to smoothen the steering of the front wheels, this hydraulic force is generated by a series of components that includes hydraulic cylinder, rotator hydraulic pump, hydraulic lines, highly compressed hydraulic fluid and a coupling mechanism that can couple this hydraulic system with rack of the steering system. When the driver provides input by rotating the steering wheel, the hydraulic pump driven by the engine starts pumping the highly compressed hydraulic fluid through lines. The hydraulic pressure produced by the pump enters the hydraulic cylinder which in turn applies pressure over the cylinder’s piston. The piston which is under high pressure starts moving from one end to the another which in turn pushes the further fluid through lines, with this movement of piston the input force applied by the driver is multiplied several times. This high pressure fluid sent by the hydraulic cylinder then applies the pressure to the attached pinion through the coupling mechanism which in turn applies high force to the rack gear and the steering action in the front wheels takes place. 8 Page Thank You 9 Page
