Sunday, May 12, 2013 at 14:16
Thanks Rockape, I hope others read it as
well.
My background is science rather than engineering and I tend to approach articles written by "retired engineers" with caution (no specific offence meant to Collyn!) for two reasons. Quite often the explanation given will be based on knowledge of an unrelated field ("I know about flowing water, therefore I will apply the same rules to flowing electrons", for example). Secondly, complex phenomena are "approximately" explained. This explanation is sufficient for the majority of situations, but is totally inaccurate when you move outside a narrow range of conditions because it was actually the wrong explanation of the observation in the first place.
I admit that I started reading the article I linked to with the same scepticism. What changed my attitude was Collyn's admission that he'd pretty much blindly accepted the 10% rule up until a few years' back. He could have just as easily written the article by saying something along the lines of "and I did the analysis and concluded that 10% is about right". Instead he went back to basics and analysed the full extent of the situation - what changes when things are outside the norm. I found it amusing that he hints at the end if the article at some of the historical confrontations he's had on forums (and probably elsewhere) where his
views were questioned. In this particular analysis of the subject I can't find any reasons to doubt his conclusions.
BTW, the camper that started me thinking is a single axle, sub-5m hybrid. I suspect that its rugged appearance lulls owners into a false sense of security but doesn't negate the laws of physics. There is probably no fundamental problem with the design.
While I'm in a contemplative mode, I wonder about the influence independent
suspension on campers has on stability at the edge. Again, a strong marketing aspect (IS is more modern, complex etc than a solid axle therefore must be better) but does it introduce an extra independent leverage point? For top-heavy vans, can the wheels oscillate (particularly as some dampers are at silly angles) and exacerbate the likelihood of random motion of the whole unit?
Adrian
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