To organize all thoughts in selecting 3- or 4-wheel, I will make a decision matrix and select all criteria that must be considered.
When discussing a 3-wheel design we will be considering both a tadpole/teardrop shape and a delta shape as shown below.
The 4-wheel datum is a vehicle rear-wheel drive vehicle, with ackerman steering in the front, and brakes in all wheels.
Criteria | Weighting | 4-Wheel | Delta | Tadpole | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Suspension | 0 | This criteria is broken up into the design, manufacturability, and assembly of the front and rear suspension. Both will be factored into the final decision. | |||
Front | 0 | ||||
Design | 0 | ||||
Manufacturability | 0 | ||||
Assembly | 0 | ||||
Rear | 0 | ||||
Design | 0 | ||||
Manufacturability | 0 | ||||
Assembly | 0 | ||||
Steering | 0 | This criteria is broken up into the design, manufacturability and assembly of front, rear, or all-wheel steering. In this case, we will use the best scoring implementation of the three steering types. Consider this a child decision matrix. | |||
Front | 0 | ||||
Design | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
Manufacturability | 0 | ||||
Assembly | 0 | ||||
Rear | 0 | ||||
Design | 0 | -1 | |||
Manufacturability | 0 | ||||
Assembly | 0 | ||||
All-Wheel | 0 | ||||
Design | 0 | ||||
Manufacturability | 0 | ||||
Assembly | 0 | ||||
Brakes | 0 | With the assumption that the implementation of brakes will be relatively equal between different wheel allocations (only front, only back, all wheels), we will only look at the over arching difficulty. Brake wheel allocations is being worked on by Ayush. | |||
Design | 0 | ||||
Manufacturability | 0 | ||||
Assembly | 0 | ||||
Stability | 0 | Min is researching the stability. 3 Wheel Vehicle | |||
Handling | 0 | ||||
Chassis | 0 | ||||
Aerobody | 0 | Connor Hawkins left a comment | |||
Battery Box | 0 | ||||
Motor Allocations | 0 | Typically, for tadpole design the vehicle is rear wheel drive - Evan Dodd Consider the number of motors and if a differential would be required https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIGvhvOhLHU&t=282s |
Resources:
https://engineerdog.com/2015/09/09/engineering-a-3-wheel-vehicle-chassis/