Investigation and Optimization of Front Suspension and Steering Geometrical Compatibility

Gaurav Paliwal; Naveen Sukumar; Umashanker Gupta; Ashutosh Dubey; Nitin Chopra

doi:10.4271/2015-01-0492

The need to develop products faster and to have designs which are first time right have put enormous pressure on the product development timelines, thus making computer aided optimization one of the most important tool in achieving these targets.

In this paper, a design of experiments (DOE) study is used, to gain an insight as to, how changes to different parameters of front suspension and steering of a passenger bus affect its kinematic properties and thus to obtain an optimized design in terms of handling parameters such as bump steer, percent ackermann error and lock to lock rotation angle of steering wheel.

The conventional hit and trial method is time consuming and monotonous and still is an approximate method, whereas in design of experiments (DOE), a model is repeatedly run through simulations in a single setup, for various combinations of parameter settings. Effects of the design variables of the model are then studied, which provides an insight to help design an optimized model.

A subsystem level rigid body MSC ADAMS/View model is used which has a SAE 3 link leaf spring on front axle.

The hard point locations of the steering linkages were varied and a design of experiments (DOE) study conducted using MSC ADAMS Insight, thus identifying the critical variables.

These critical variables were then optimized using MSC ADAMS/ View tool to achieve the desired targets.

The results of the optimization study are verified using objective measurement on a static vehicle and were found to be in good coherence with the model results.

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Investigation and Optimization of Front Suspension and Steering Geometrical Compatibility 2015-01-0492

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