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k4kfh / ZephyrCab

Drive a model train with prototypical controls, realistic behavior, and simulated physics; uses JMRI's WebSockets interface for layout connection
http://k4kfh.github.io/ZephyrCab
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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Misnomer: tractive effort should be tractive force #12

Closed k4kfh closed 8 years ago

k4kfh commented 8 years ago

In the code, I use te and tractiveEffort and such as variable names in several places. This is technically incorrect because according to Wikipedia:

Tractive effort is the force generated by a vehicle's engine or motor in order to generate motion through tractive force. Tractive effort differs from tractive force, which is the actual force applied at the road surface, by the amount of rolling resistance present.

So I need to change those variable names (and everything that references them) to tractive FORCE before it's too big of a hassle.

k4kfh commented 8 years ago

I may not fix this. It's a very small misnomer, and it now involves a pretty good bit of code. I'll probably wait until brake stuff is moving along before worrying about petty things like this.

k4kfh commented 8 years ago

The paper from Virginia Tech with the equation to calculate tractive effort uses both terms interchangeably, and if TE can be calculated more easily than tractive force, that's less math anyway. Best case, everything stays as is. Worst case, eventually we remove the rolling resistance math from the code dealing with locomotives if that's included in the TE values. The data sheet on thedieselshop.us has the value listed as "Tractive Effort", but I have yet to find any measurements like this in the official EMD manual for the F7, so I'm not sure which "version" of the term that thedieselshop.us is using. For now, to cut down on the need to branch off and make changes, I'm closing this issue and we can readdress it later if need be.