Note on the characteristic rank of vector bundles

We define the notion of characteristic rank, charrank (X) (xi), of a real vector bundle xi over a connected finite CW-complex X. This is a bundle-dependent version of the notion of characteristic rank introduced by JA(0)lius Korba in 2010. We obtain bounds for the cup length of manifolds in terms of the characteristic rank of vector bundles generalizing a theorem of Korba and compute the characteristic rank of vector bundles over the Dold manifolds, the Moore spaces and the stunted projective spaces amongst others.