Lateral Stiffness, Cornering Stiffness and Relaxation Length of the Pneumatic Tire

This paper describes an experimental program of tire research used to quantify the concept of the “relaxation length” of the fully rolling, steered tire. Two methods of developing lateral force are compared for the general car with the result that a first-order differential equation is obtained from which the change is lateral force with time, or distance, as the steer angle variation is computed.