Virtual Road Approach for Vehicle Durability Simulations 2013-01-1165

In current scenario, virtual validation is one of the important phase for any new product development process. The initial step for virtual validation for durability analysis of vehicle is to understand the loads which are transmitted to body from the roads. In current methodology standard 3g load cases are considered. These are worst load cases which show more number of high stress locations on vehicle. In actual vehicle running condition, dynamic loads are coming on vehicle structure. These dynamic loads can be obtained by measuring the loads coming on the vehicle through road load data acquisition system. The use of measured loads posed challenges due to the non-availability of representative mule in the initial phase of vehicle development.

To overcome these challenges, Mahindra & Mahindra developed a new approach which enabled the direct substitution of analytically synthesized loads for measured data. Analytically synthesized loads were derived by running the multibody full vehicle model on virtual road. Virtual roads are created in the software for different type of roads like pot hole, kerb strike, country roads, rough road, express highway roads and city roads. This virtual method of road load data acquisition helped to shorten the product development cycles and helped to increase the accuracy of stress prediction. Virtual road loads were validated with measured road loads for some events to increase the confidence. Paper highlights good correlation of dynamic loads derived from virtual road with the test loads and fatigue block cycle development based on proving ground target cycles.