From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Technical memorandum discussing the phenomenon of front wheel wobbles, specifically addressing gyroscopic wobble.
Identifier | ExFiles\Box 29\1\ Scan023 | |
Date | 4th September 1925 | |
To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from EFC. c. to CJ. DA.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} c. Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} X457 EFCg/T4.9.25. FRONT WHEEL WOBBLES. In confirmation of our telephone conversation and in answer to your telegram, I am coming to Chichester with Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} on Monday night - W.W. Tuesday morning. Previous to a more thorough consideration of the subject, I can only give preliminary answers to your questions, but hope to arrive in due course at something more than the present. (1)). Is there such a thing as a gyroscopic wobble ? This certainly exists. In the case of a gyroscope wheel, supported at its centre of mass in gimbal bearings, or of the similar case of a diabolo in free motion in space abouts its centre of mass (which centre of mass may itself be in independent parabolic motion due to gravity), a possible motion under the action of no couples is a conical motion of the axis at the same time as the body is in revolution about that axis. This can only be the case if the body is uni-axal, i.e. has a moment of inertia about its axis of form different from the other two principal moments of inertia about two other mutually perpendicular axes. It is to this case that the equation quoted in Da{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}10/29.8.25 applies, and consequently to which his argument, namely, that the period of conical oscillation for a small cone angle cannot be equal to Contd. | ||