Effect of Geometric Features of Simple Curves on Steering Behavior of Passenger Car

To study the kinematics characteristic and driver behaviors of vehicle driving on simple curves, a dynamic model of passenger car was built with ADAMS software to perform virtual driving tests on simple curves under the driving patterns of curve-cutting and curve-following. On the basis of the angle change of the steering wheel, a steering process was divided into three stages: entering the curve, maintaining the steering wheel, and exiting the curve. Parameters of steering behavior at the three stages were collected separately for the two driving patterns, such as steering distance and steering time when the vehicle entered or exited the simple curve, and the effects of deflection angle and vehicle wheelbase on vehicle steering behavior were analyzed. The result shows that: steering angle, steering distance, and steering time increase with the deflection angle when deflection angle is smaller than a critical value, especially for the curve-cutting pattern; steering distance of vehicle entering or departing a curve increases as the curve radius when the radius is shorter than 550 m; different driving patterns can lead to different steering distances, and the steering distance of the curve-cutting pattern is about twice as long as that of the curve-following pattern; for the curve-cutting pattern, the profile of steering time against curve radius increases first then decreases, namely, it takes on a parabolic shape, while the profile of the curve-following pattern falls in a monotone manner, and the average steering time of two patterns is approximately 3.75 s.