Blog

What is Banking Angle?

At the turning of the road you might have observed that the inner side of the road (or the side of the road which forms the inside of the turning arc) has the lower height than the other side of the road. As a result, at the turning, the surface of the road is not flat; it is inclined towards the centre of the turning of the road.

Such inclination at the turning is called the banking of roads and the angle of inclination of the road at turning is called the banking angle of the road.

Why We Need Banking?

Well, in short, due to the centrifugal force. To explain it further, say, we have a road turning with turning radius R and the turning doesn’t have the banking or inclination.

Let’s assume further that a car is passing the turning with a velocity of V and the coefficient of friction between the car tire and road is μ.

At the turning, with the absence of the banking, the centrifugal force developed in the vehicle need to be entirely balanced by the frictional force between the car wheels and road.

Frictional force>=Centrifugal force

μ*M*g =>(M*V²)/R

or, V <= √(μ*R*g)………………eq.1

Where,

M – Mass of the car

g – Acceleration due to the gravity

From the above eq.1, you can see that, for the turning of the road without banking, the speed of the car cannot be more than √(μ*R*g).

So, in order to facilitate the driving at higher speed (higher than the value of √μ*R*g) at the turning banking of the road is required.  

How to Calculate the Banking Angle of the Road

In case of baking of the road in the turning, the centrifugal force is balanced by the component of the reaction force. See the below force balance diagram for the banking of road:

R1*Cosθ=M*g………………………………….eq.2

R1*Sinθ=Centrifugal force= (M*V²)/R………………eq.3

By dividing the eq.3 to eq.2,

Tanθ=(V²)/(R*g)……………………….eq.4

So, with the banking at the road turning by increasing the banking angle the higher velocity of the passing car can be achieved safely.

Shibashis Ghosh

Hi, I am Shibashis, a blogger by passion and an engineer by profession. I have written most of the articles for mechGuru.com. For more than a decades i am closely associated with the engineering design/manufacturing simulation technologies. I am a self taught code hobbyist, presently in love with Python (Open CV / ML / Data Science /AWS -3000+ lines, 400+ hrs. )