The Gyroscopic Effect

he gyroscopic effect is widely used in air or sea vehicles such as air planes and ships, wherein always external disturbing couple is acting on the vehicle. Thus, for the stability of such vehicles it is essential to neutralize the effect of external disturbing couple which can be done by applying equal and opposite couple .Accordingly, to generate equal and opposite reactive couple it is essential to vary the magnitude and direction of velocity of precession.

In the case of two wheelers this phenomenon can be effectively used for stabilizing

& balancing the vehicle by means of a rotating disc

i.e. a gyroscope.

Consider a body rotating in a plane (plane YZ,

Fig.1.1)

The converse of the above also holds good

i.e..Whenever a body is rotating in a plane (plane

YZ) about an axis (axis OX) and a couple is applied on a rotating body across axis of rotation or spin in another perpendicular plane (plane XY), the rotating or spinning body starts precessing in third mutually perpendicular plane (plane XZ) as shown in the adjoining fig.

This phenomenon is known as gyroscopic effect.

Fig.1.1: Concept of gyroscopic principle

The active gyroscopic couple represents rate of change of angular momentum, and this couple must be applied to disc across the axis of spin to cause it to precess in the horizontal plane.

When the axis of spin precess itself or is made to precess the shaft on which the disc is mounted applies reactive gyroscopic couple (Fig 1.2). This reactive gyroscopic couple thus produced by the gyroscope is equal to the external disturbance but it is in opposite direction. Thus this couple neutralizes the effect of disturbance & stabilizes the object. Modeling & Validation of Prototype of

Thus, the concept car developed by Lit motors is self stabilizing, however it has one more added feature i.e. even if any external force is applied to the vehicle it get’s displaced initially but again comes back to its original position, i.e. it not only stabilizes but also balances itself on its own against any disturbances.

The self balancing phenomenon is possible only because of the high level electronic system imparted in the vehicle that gives the necessary signal to the gyroscope to produce a counter-balancing effect as per the applied external force so that the vehicle comes back to the initial position after getting displaced.

Fig 1.6: Gyroscopes imparted in the vehicle

Two gyroscopes used in the concept car with high level electronics are shown in Fig: 1.6.

This gyroscopes axis of rotation is made to precess depending upon the direction of the external force

(disturbances). Where the angle of precession is decided as per the magnitude of the external