Speaker
Description
Abstract. Grip, or skid-resistance, is a fundamental attribute of a racetrack and needs to be understood by track owners, operators and racing teams. An analysis of racetrack wet grip produced datasets comprising tens of thousands of geolocated data points. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the datasets can be used to create Triangular Irregular Networks (TINs) that present grip morphology as digital surfaces. Wet grip data was collected from three racetracks using a Findlay Irvine GripTester. The recorded friction coefficients are known as Grip Numbers (GNs). The data sets were aggregated and plotted in CAD software OpenRoads Designer (ORD) and used to create a grip Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) for each track. Linear interpolation was applied to the data points to produce a continuous wet grip surface. The wet grip surfaces are presented as thematic maps and a data structure that could be used for further surface analysis. This results in a novel development that advances the display of grip variation beyond mapping discrete point data to interpolating GripNumbers between point data collected at the track.
