THE EFFECT OF FRONT FORK COMPLIANCE ON THE STABILITY OF BICYCLES

In this paper the effect of front fork compliance on uncontrolled bicycle stability is analyzed. First the benchmark model of a bicycle is improved to take into account either torsion compliance or bending compliance of front fork, a lumped element approach is adopted introducing additional joints restrained by rotational springs and dampers. Two models having three degrees of freedom are developed and implemented in MATLAB codes to perform stability analysis. Then series of experimental tests are carried out on an advanced carbon fork and a standard steel fork, the modal analysis approach is adopted. Experimental methods and results are presented and discussed. A specific method is developed for identifying the stiffness and damping properties from the bending and torsion modes of the forks. Results obtained with the proposed method agree with data presented in literature. Finally, the identified stiffness and damping parameters are implemented in the simulation codes and some numerical simulations are carried out. Results presented in the paper show a small influence of torsion compliance on stability and a large influence of bending compliance on high speed stability.