A high-speed road or railway track that is poorly designed. The vehicle moves at constant speed from the straight segment of road or track directly onto a CircularArc and thereby encounters an instantaneous application of centripetal acceleration. This is neither good for the driver and passengers who will feel a sudden force outwards, nor for the vehicle which my skid and impose large stress changes in the axles and bearings.

This is why #Engineers use #TransitionCurves in the form of #CornuSpirals or #Clothoids to connect from the straight segment onto a circular arc. It has the property that it starts with zero #curvature at the beginning and then the curvature increases linearly with distance travelled along the curve. At the appropriate curvature, it is connected to a circular arc with the same curvature. The people in the vehicle and the vehicle itself are much less stressed by this solution.

#MyWork #WxMaxima #CivilEngineering #HighwayEngineering #CCBYSA