Evaluation of the vehicle handling performances by a new approach

The analysis of the steady-state cornering behaviour of a vehicle is generally based on the classical single track model. As a consequence, some results, such as the handling diagram and the understeer gradient, are not general and should be used only for the category of vehicles that they represent. A general approach, which is not dependent on the vehicle model, is presented in this paper. It is shown how the handling performances of any vehicle can be investigated by the properties of some functions of two variables, called handling surfaces. The new approach includes, as a particular case, the classical theory.