Advances in Automobile Steering System

Introduction:

Here, we will discuss one of most important system is any automobile. In this article we will see some of the evolutionary steering designs information.

Automobile Steering Systems:

All of us know, why do this steering system came to evident. So, when automobiles came and started getting developed steering got more and more evolved.

1. Manual Steering System:

It mainly consist of parts:

• Steering Wheel and Column.
• Manual gear box, pitman arm, gearbox.
• Rack and pinion assembly.
• Linkages, steering knuckles, ball joints.
• wheel spindle assembly.

So, manual steering was totally a mechanism based on mechanical movements of parts and forces. More is the number of parts, larger is the weight of system, bulkier is the system harder is its applications.

Moreover, large mechanism integrates the size with its larger applications. e.g. for small vehicle some system may work adequate but for truck it becomes bulky and performs less than it should be. For all these reasons manual system is not the ideal one and needed to be replaced.

2. Power Assisted Steering System (Power Steering System):

This is most generalized system today. This system removes the major fault of manual system, that it does not need user to provide variable input force for variable output. This statement could be explained as, For a small car and for a giant truck if both uses Manual Steering, truck driver needs a lot of efforts to turn it through some predefined angle and car driver needs comparatively lesser of them. But using power steering equalizes this phenomenon. Take this example, there are two switches made exactly same but one is associated to 40W lamp and another is connected to 200W lamp. Here in both cases, human efforts needed is exactly same to switch ON the lamp but output is damn different.

Major components of Power Assisted Steering System are Hydraulic power steering, pump and rotary valve.

3. Variable Displacement Power Steering Pump:

This is advanced type of Power Steering. As name suggests it uses the variable displacement of power fluid, i.e. hydraulic fluid. This phenomenon increases the sensitivity of operation of system.

4. Electro-Hydraulic Power Assisted Systems (EHPAS):

This system can also be categorized under Power Steering System. In this system, electrical system is integrated which makes it more comfortable, accurate, sensitive and reliable. Also, it reduces overall size of system, which for a car is good phenomenon.

5. Electric Power assisted Steering (EPAS):

This is evolved from previous. It is provided with steering sensor and MCU (Microprocessor Control Unit). This makes it smart appliance and improves the performance vastly.

That’s all for the Steering System. For more information on it and its Future Scope, checkout the references.

References:

[1] http://auto.howstuffworks.com/steering.htm

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering