| This text is for engineering students. It introduces the fundamental knowledge used in vehicle dynamics. This knowledge can be utilized to develop computer programs for analyzing the ride, handling, and optimization of road vehicles.
Vehicle dynamics has been in the engineering curriculum for more than a hundred years. Books on the subject are available, but most of them are written for specialists and are not suitable for a classroom application. A new student, engineer, or researcher would not know where and how to start learning vehicle dynamics. So, there is a need for a textbook for beginners. This textbook presents the fundamentals with a perspective on future trends.
The study of classical vehicle dynamics has its roots in the work of great scientists of the past four centuries and creative engineers in the past century who established the methodology of dynamic systems. The development of vehicle dynamics has moved toward modeling, analysis, and optimization of multi-body dynamics supported by some compliant members. Therefore, merging dynamics with optimization theory was an expected development. The fast-growing capability of accurate positioning, sensing, and calculations, along with intelligent computer programming are the other important developments in vehicle dynamics. So, a textbook help the reader to make a computer model of vehicles, which this book does. |
