What is Camber

[hardhgear]

Hello actually its my first time to in this site,And I would like to know about some thing called [camber and it belongs to the brake i think i want to now what is it and waht it's function is?
thanks

[bernard]

I'm not really a champion in the correct terms, but i think camber is the amount the tyres are tilted. You know. The way the tyre is not straight, but the top or bottom part is closer to the car.
Really hard to put words around it, especially in english.

[bernard]

hahaa, found it!
According to the Glossary on top of this site, camber is:

"camber
The amount that the top of the tyre leans into, or away from the car. That means the wheel is not perfectly verticall on the road surface, this to optimize the tyre surface that is in contact with the ground, thus highering cornering speeds."

So pretty much what I was trying to say. A bit more comprehensible, though.

[marcush.]

But why do you need camber?
One reason is the body roll /lean in corners effectively putting the cars outside tyres into more positive camber.
The second reason is a thing called camber thrust describing the phenomenon that the tyre effectively generates the most cornering capability when slightly negative camber is retained whereas one might thing having the contact patch flat on the tarmac should produce the best
roadholding.Cambers /Cambergain needs are highly influenced by the tyre
construction so Michelins don´t necessaryly like Bridgestone developed cambercharacteristics and vice versa...

[West]

How does the lateral forces force positive camber? I can't picture it... unless the gforces pull on the top of the wheel...

[marcush.]

The sidewall of the tyre gets distorted (Tyre construction!)by the sideforces(Widshieldwipereffect...)So the contact patch moves from the centreline of the tyre to the car centreline a bit.This puts the outer sidewall under tension loads,in extreme cases the cars riding on the sidewalls even (fallover).To counteract this you give more camber than theoretically necessary to create the best possible contact patch.

[West]

When you say "tension," like in a right-hand turn, the wheel is being pulled away from the car or towards the car? Because when you say that the contact patch moves from the centerline of hte tire to the car centerline, that seems like the general definition of a negatively-cambered tire...

The only thing I can picture is that the lateral forces are pulling the tire towards the ground, on the outer sidewall part. With the tire already negatively cambered a bigger contact patch is applied.

[stevegek]

Well I go quite noobish now but they also use camber with go karts. The front wheels can be adjusted but its funny how to setup the rear chamber:

Take a thinner rear wheel axe so it can bend more and there is more camber.
Funny eh?

[Hard Gear]

Thank you all For your help

[Rogue230]

Think of it in terms of the car itself.

As you corner, the top of the car rolls away from the corner. Well, your tires do the same thing, the top tilts away from the corner. This causes a positive camber in the outside tire. (The one that matters most. Marcush?)

This is a factor over and above that of the tire itself being skewed or sheared by the car moving above it.

Some negative camber pervents the camber from going 'positive' in corners but too much negative camber results in a smaller contact patch yielding more rapid tire wear and reduced braking ability.

Production cars often design positive camber into the cars geometry because as you corner and the car rolls the positive camber actually results in under-steer. This is considered 'safer' than over-steer.

Personally I prefer something closer to neutral-steer or just slightly over. I have heard it described as "under-steer is when the driver is scared, over-steer is when the passenger is scared"!

[CFDruss]

Do you mean camber of the wheel, or camber of a wing section???

[CFDruss]

oppss, dont matter, you meant the wheel camber, didnt see that part!!!! duh

[Guest]

of course ,in normal cars body roll is the main issue.But we are discussing F1 do we?And i did not see much body roll in F1 lately(apart from fisis rollover in monteCarlo)....
nevertheless you are right body roll has to be counteracted by applying negative camber.But as you correctly mentioned the outer tyres are more heavily loaded when cornering so it makes sense to design some camber gain into the suspension so as the outer wheel goes into bump travel more camber is present.we are talking small numbers as the cars don´t roll much and don´t sport lots of suspension travel...

[Rogue230]

Yes, I thought of that after posting.

Suspension geometry, especially unequal length 'A'-arms can yield a net negative camber effect due to body-roll.

[marcush.]

not due to the roll but due to going into bump travel...
The roll itself reduces the camber.