Rocking instability of a pulled suitcase with two wheels (Q671204)

The author investigates a phenomenon well known to every traveller pulling a modern suitcase on wheels. Depending on size, angle and length of the pulling bar, width of the wheels and speed of the traveller's motion, the smooth straight motion of the suitcase may loose its stability. One often experiences a motion for which the suitcase is excited to a rocking oscillation about the roll axis, where alternatively the wheels lose their ground contact. The paper gives an interesting analysis of this phenomenon which is theoretically complicated to describe the influence of important parameters.