Numerical Prediction of Ride Comfort of Tracked Vehicle Equipped with Novel Flexible Road Wheels

Enhancing ride comfort has always constituted a crucial focus in the design and research of modern tracked vehicles,heavily reliant on the driving system's performance.While the road wheel is a key component of the driving system,traditional road wheels predominantly adopt a solid structure,exhibiting subpar adhesion performance and damping effects,thereby falling short of meeting the demands for high-speed,stable,and long-distance driving in tracked vehicles.Addressing this issue,this paper proposes a novel type of flexible road wheel(FRW)characterized by a catenary construction.The study investigates the ride comfort of tracked vehicles equipped with flexible road wheels by integrating finite element and vehicle dynamic.First,three-dimensional(3D)finite element(FE)models of both flexible and rigid road wheels are established,considering material and contact nonlinearities.These models are validated through a wheel radial loading test.Based on the validated FE model,the paper uncovers the relationship between load and radial deformation of the road wheel,forming the basis for a nonlinear mathematical model.Subsequently,a half-car model of a tracked vehicle with seven degrees of freedom is established using Newton's second law.A random road model,considering the track effect and employing white noise,is constructed.The study concludes by examining the ride comfort of tracked vehicles equipped with flexible and rigid road wheels under various speeds and road grades.The results demonstrate that,in comparison to the rigid road wheel(RRW),the flexible road wheel enhances the ride comfort of tracked vehicles on randomly uneven roads.This research provides a theoretical foundation for the implementation of flexible road wheels in tracked vehicles.

Advances in Active Suspension Systems for Road Vehicles

Active suspension systems(ASSs)have been proposed and developed for a few decades,and have now once again become a thriving topic in both academia and industry,due to the high demand for driving comfort and safety and the compatibility of ASSs with vehicle electrification and autonomy.Existing review papers on ASSs mainly cover dynamics modeling and robust control;however,the gap between academic research outcomes and industrial application requirements has not yet been bridged,hindering most ASS research knowledge from being transferred to vehicle companies.This paper comprehensively reviews advances in ASSs for road vehicles,with a focus on hardware structures and control strategies.In particular,state-of-the-art ASSs that have been recently adopted in production cars are discussed in detail,including the representative solutions of Mercedes active body control(ABC)and Audi predictive active suspension;novel concepts that could become alternative candidates are also introduced,including series active variable geometry suspension,and the active wheel-alignment system.ASSs with compact structure,small mass increment,low power consumption,high-frequency response,acceptable economic costs,and high reliability are more likely to be adopted by car manufacturers.In terms of control strategies,the development of future ASSs aims not only to stabilize the chassis attitude and attenuate the chassis vibration,but also to enable ASSs to cooperate with other modules(e.g.,steering and braking)and sensors(e.g.,cameras)within a car,and even with high-level decision-making(e.g.,reference driving speed)in the overall transportation system-strategies that will be compatible with the rapidly developing electric and autonomous vehicles.

Annoyance Rate Evaluation Method on Ride Comfort of Vehicle Suspension System

The existing researches of the evaluation method of ride comfort of vehicle mainly focus on the level of human feelings to vibration. The level of human feelings to vibration is influenced by many factors, however, the ride comfort according to the common principle of probability and statistics and simple binary logic is tmable to reflect these uncertainties. The random fuzzy evaluation model from people subjective response to vibration is adopted in the paper, these uncertainties are analyzed from the angle of psychological physics. Discussing the traditional evaluation of ride comfort during vehicle vibration, a fuzzily random evaluation model on the basis of annoyance rate is proposed for the human body＇s subjective response to vibration, with relevant fuzzy membership function and probability distribution given. A half-car four degrees of freedom suspension vibration model is described, subject to irregular excitations from the road surface, with the aid of software Matlab/Simulink. A new kind of evaluation method for ride comfort of vehicles is proposed in the paper, i.e., the annoyance rate evaluation method. The genetic algorithm and neural network control theory are used to control the system. Simulation results are obtained, such as the comparison of comfort reaction to vibration environments between before and after control, relationship of annoyance rate to vibration frequency and weighted acceleration, based on ISO 2631 / 1 （1982）, ISO 2631-1 （1997） and annoyance rate evaluation method, respectively. Simulated assessment results indicate that the proposed active suspension systems prove to be effective in the vibration isolation of the suspension system, and the subjective response of human being can be promoted from very uncomfortable to a little uncomfortable. Furthermore, the novel evaluation method based on annoyance rate can further estimate quantitatively the number of passengers who feel discomfort due to vibration. A new analysis method of vehicle comfort is presented.

Vehicle Ride Comfort Based on Matching Suspension System

The existing investigations of vehicle ride comfort mainly include motion characteristics analysis based on creating a multi-body dynamic simulation model,and the parameters analysis to improve the suspension control for the target.In the study of creating multi-body dynamics simulation models,there is usually without considering calibration and test verification,which make it difficult to ensure the production of engineering.In the study of improving the suspension control parameters for the target,there is a lack of systematic match about comfortable and human characteristics,so it is difficult to implement in the field of driving and leading the vehicle design.In this paper,based on the different characteristic of suspension system that effects on the vehicle ride comfort, according to the suspension system dynamic mechanism,the research methods of vehicle road test,bench test and CAE simulation is used,at the same time,several sensitivity analysis of vehicle ride comfort related to suspension stiffness and damping and speed is made. As a result,the key suspension systematic parameters are given that have important impact on vehicle ride comfort.Through matching parameters,a calibration analysis of suspension system based on human comfort is obtained.The analysis results show that the analysis methods for the design target of making the vehicle with best comfort are effective.On the basis of the theory study,five suspension parameter matching principles are explored to promise the vehicle with perfect ride comfort,which also provide theoretical basis and design methods for the passenger car best match of suspension system stiffness and damping.The research results have the promotional value of practicability and a wide range of engineering application.

Ride comfort evaluation for road vehicle based on rigid-flexible coupling multibody dynamics

In the present research two different whole vehicle multibody models are established respectively, including rigid and rigid-flexible coupling multibody vehicle models. The former is all composed by rigid bodies while in the later model, the flexible rear suspension is built based on the finite element method （FEM） and mode superposition method, in which the deformations of the components are considered. The ride simulations with different speeds are carried out on a 3D digitalized road, and the weighted root mean square （RMS） of accelerations on the seat surface,backrest and at the feet are calculated. The comparison between the responses of the rigid and rigid-flexible coupling multibody models shows that the flexibility of the vehicle parts significantly affects the accelerations at each position, and it is necessary to take the flexibility effects into account for the assessment of ride comfort. C 2013 The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. [doi： 10.1063/2.1301304]

Experimental Study on the Ride Comfort of a Crawler Power Chassis Scale Model Based on the Similitude Theory

The ride comfort experimental assessment of crawler off-road vehicle is relatively overlooked, and is expensive and difficult to execute with higher and higher ride comfort performance requirements. To trade off between precise and cost, an experimental method based on the similitude theory is proposed. Under the guidance of the similitude theory, a 1：5 crawler power chassis scale model equipped with a kind of variable stiffness suspension system is used. The power spectrum density（PSD）, the root mean square（RMS） of weighed acceleration, peak factor, average absorbed power（AAP） and vibration dose value（VDV） are selected as ride comfort evaluation indexes, and tests results are transformed via similarity indexes to predict the performance of full-scale power chassis. PSD shows that the low-order natural frequency of the vertical natural frequency（z axis） is 1.1 Hz, and the RMS, AAP and VDV values indicate the ride comfort performance of this kind of power chassis is between the ＂A little uncomfortable＂ and ＂Rather uncomfortable＂. From the results, low-order vertical natural frequency, obtained by PSD, validates that the similarity relationship between two models is satisfied, and 1：5 scale model used in experiment meets the similarity relationship with the full-scale model; consequently, the ride comfort prophase evaluation with the 1：5 scale model is feasible. The attempt of applying the similitude theory to crawler vehicle ride comfort test study decreases the cost and improves the test feasibility with sufficient test precise.

Effect of the off-road terrains on the ride comfort of construction vehicles

In order to evaluate the impact of off-road terrains on the ride comfort of construction vehicles,a nonlinear dynamic model of the construction vehicles interacting with the terrain deformations is established based on Matlab/Simulink software.The weighted root mean square(RMS)acceleration responses and the power spectral density(PSD)acceleration responses of the driver s seat heave,the pitch and roll angle of the cab in the low-frequency region are chosen as objective functions under different operation conditions of the vehicle.The results show that the impact of off-road terrains on the driver s ride comfort and health is clear under various conditions of deformable terrains and range of vehicle velocities.In particular,the driver s ride comfort is greatly affected by a soil terrain while the comfortable shake of the driver is strongly affected by a sand terrain.In addition,when the vehicle travels on a poor soil terrain in the frequency range below 4 Hz,more resonance peaks of acceleration PSD responses occurred than that on a rigid road of ISO 2631-1 level C.Thus,the driver s health is significantly affected by the deformable terrain in a low-frequency range.

Frequency Weighting Filter Design for Automotive Ride Comfort Evaluation

Few study gives guidance to design weighting filters according to the frequency weighting factors,and the additional evaluation method of automotive ride comfort is not made good use of in some countries.Based on the regularities of the weighting factors,a method is proposed and the vertical and horizontal weighting filters are developed.The whole frequency range is divided several times into two parts with respective regularity.For each division,a parallel filter constituted by a low-and a high-pass filter with the same cutoff frequency and the quality factor is utilized to achieve section factors.The cascading of these parallel filters obtains entire factors.These filters own a high order.But,low order filters are preferred in some applications.The bilinear transformation method and the least P-norm optimal infinite impulse response（IIR） filter design method are employed to develop low order filters to approximate the weightings in the standard.In addition,with the window method,the linear phase finite impulse response（FIR） filter is designed to keep the signal from distorting and to obtain the staircase weighting.For the same case,the traditional method produces 0.330 7 m · s^–2 weighted root mean square（r.m.s.） acceleration and the filtering method gives 0.311 9 m · s^–2 r.m.s.The fourth order filter for approximation of vertical weighting obtains 0.313 9 m · s^–2 r.m.s.Crest factors of the acceleration signal weighted by the weighting filter and the fourth order filter are 3.002 7 and 3.011 1,respectively.This paper proposes several methods to design frequency weighting filters for automotive ride comfort evaluation,and these developed weighting filters are effective.

Research on Human-Vehicle-Road Friendliness Based on Improved SH-GH-ADD Control

The hub-driven virtual rail train is a novel urban transportation system that amalgamates the benefits of modern trams and buses.However,this system is plagued by issues such as decreased ride comfort and severe deformation of urban roads due to the increase in sprung mass and long-term rolling at the same position.To address these concerns and improve the human-vehicle-road friendliness of the virtual rail train,we propose an Improved Sky-Ground Hook and Acceleration-Driven Damper control(Improved SH-GH-ADD control)strategy for the semi-active suspension system.This control monitors the vibration acceleration signal of the unsprung mass in real-time and selects the mixed Sky-Hook and Acceleration-Driven Damper(SH-ADD)control or the mixed Ground-Hook and Acceleration-Driven Damper(GH-ADD)control based on the positive and negative values of the vibration acceleration of the unsprung mass.The Improved SH-GH-ADD control combines the advantages of SH-ADD control and GH-ADD control to achieve control of the sprung mass and unsprung mass in the full fre-quency band.Finally,through simulation and comparative analysis with traditional SH-ADD,GH-ADD,and mixed SH-GH control,we demonstrate the exceptional performance of the proposed algorithm.

Improving rail vehicle dynamic performance with active suspension

Today,it is difficult to further improve the dynamic performance of rail vehicles with conventional passive suspension.Also,simplified vehicle respectively running gear layouts that significantly could reduce vehicle weights are difficult to realize with modern requirements on passenger vibration comfort and wheel and rail wear.Active suspension is a powerful technology that can improve the vehicle dynamic performance and make simplified vehicle concepts possible.The KTH Railway group has,together with external partners,investigated active suspensions both numerically and experimentally for 15 years.The paper provides a summary of the activities and the most important findings.One major project carried out in close collaboration with the vehicle manufacturer Bombardier and the Swedish Transport Administration was the Green Train project,where a 2-car EMU test bench was used to demonstrate different active technologies.In ongoing projects,a concept of single axle-single suspension running gear is developed with active suspension both for comfort improvement and reduced wheel wear in curves.The results from on-track tests in the Green Train project were so good that the technology is now implemented in commercial trains and the simulation results for the single-axle running gear are very promising.

Analysis of the Material Properties of Vehicle Suspension Coil Spring

The suspension coil spring is one of the most important components in a vehicle suspension system. Its primary function is to absorb the vibrational shocks that are occasioned by irregular road surface to provide the vehicle with stability and ride comfort. The main objective of this study is to design a suspension coil spring made of structural steel for light duty vehicles with the aim of weight and cost reduction. This study was motivated by the government of Ghana’s actions to industrialise the automotive sector of the country through government policies and programs. The study made use of high carbon steel and low carbon steel as the control materials and structural steel as the implementing material. This was done to determine the suitability of structural steel for vehicle suspension coil spring. The study analysed parameters such as total deformation, equivalent Von Mises stress, maximum shear stress, and safety factor in the static structural analysis. The fatigue analysis also analysed parameters such as fatigue life and fatigue alternating stress. The results of the study revealed that the suspension spring made of structural steel has superior properties against all the parameters set for this study apart from deformation. The two control materials that are known for suspension coil spring design and manufacture have better properties to withstand deformation than the implementing material.

Influences of the tank liquid lateral sloshing and mass time-varying on high clearance self-propelled sprayer ride comfort

To explore the influence of the lateral sloshing and the time-varying mass of the liquid in the tank on the ride comfort of the high-clearance sprayer,a spring-mass-damping equivalent mechanics that can describe the lateral sloshing of the liquid under different filling ratios was constructed based on the equivalent criterion.The Fluent was used to simulate the moment acting on the wall of the tank by the lateral sloshing of the liquid,and then the parameters of the equivalent mechanical model are obtained by fitting and solving.Comparative analysis of Fluent simulation and bench test on lateral sloshing of tank liquid under different filling ratios.The results show that the lateral sloshing trend of the tank liquid level obtained from the Fluent simulation and the bench test was consistent,which proved the accuracy of the Fluent fluid simulation process and the correctness of the required equivalent mechanical model parameters.Incorporating a liquid sloshing equivalent model,a four-degree-of-freedom vertical dynamic model of the sprayer half-car was established.Subsequently,the performance of the sprayer was systematically analyzed and compared under the excitation of a bump road and a random E-level road.This investigation took into account varying liquid filling ratios of 10%,50%,and 90%.The focus lay on evaluating the vertical acceleration of the sprayer body,dynamic deflection of the suspension,and dynamic load on the tires in response to these road conditions.This analysis is conducted independently of the liquid sloshing factor.The results show that the lateral sloshing of the liquid medicine significantly reduces the ride smoothness of the machine,and makes the vibration response of the machine produce a certain hysteresis effect.With the reduction of the quality of the liquid medicine in the spray tank,the vibration amplitude of the sprayer body gradually decreases,the hysteresis effect is also gradually weakened.The results presented in this study offer a theoretical foundation for the analysis of ride comfort and the optimization of chassis structure in high-clearance sprayers.

Vehicle and terrain interaction based on Adams-Matlab co-simulation

A kind of construction truck model is built in Adams based on multi-body dynamic theory. The rigid and elastic wheels of tire-soil contact models are proposed based on the Bekker pressure model and the Jonasi shear soil model, and they are described in the form of S-function to enhance the calculation efficiency and simulation accuracy. Finally, the interaction of truck and soil is simulated by Adams-Maflab co-simulation to study the influence of soft terrain on the ride comfort of vehicles. The co-simulation results reveal that the terrain properties have a great influence on the ride comfort of vehicles as well as driving speed, road roughness and cargo weight. This co-simulation model is convenient for adding the factor of terrain deformation to the analysis of vehicle ride comfort. It can also be used to optimize suspension system parameters especially for off-road vehicles.

MULTIOBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION OF EIGHT-DOF VEHICLE SUSPENSION BASED ON GAME THEORY

A systematic and effective optimization is proposed for the design of a three-dimensional （3-D） vehicle suspension model with eight degrees of freedom （DOF）, including vertical seat motion, vehicle suspension, pitching and rolling motions, and vertical wheel motions using the evolutionary game theory. A new design of the passive suspension is aided by game theory to attain the best compromise between ride quality and suspension deflections. Extensive simulations are performed on three type road surface models A, B, C pavement grades based on the guidelines provided by ISO-2631 with the Matlab/Simulink environment. The preliminary results show that, when the passive suspension is optimized via the proposed approach, a substantial improvement in the vertical ride quality is obtained while keeping the suspension deflections within their allowable clearance when the vehicle moves at a constant velocity v=20 m/s, and the comfort performance of a suspension seat can be enhanced by 20%-30%.

Optimization of suspension system of off-road vehicle for vehicle performance improvement

Vehicle suspension design includes a number of compromises to provide good leveling of stability and ride comfort. Optimization of off-road vehicle suspension system is one of the most effective methods, which could considerably enhance the vehicle stability and controllability. In this work, a comprehensive optimization of an off-read vehicle suspension system model was carried out using software ADAMS. The geometric parameters of suspension system were optimized using genetic algorithm (GA) in a way that ride comfort, handling and stability of vehicle were improved. The results of optimized suspension system and variations of geometric parameters due to road roughness and different steering angles were presented in ADAMS and the results of optimized and conventional suspension systems during various driving maneuvers were compared. The simulation results indicate that the camber angle variations decrease by the optimized suspension system, resulting in improved handling and ride comfort characteristics.

Comparison of two suspension control strategies for multi-axle heavy truck

Two simple and effective control strategies for a multi-axle heavy truck, modified skyhook damping (MSD) control and proportional-integration-derivative (PID) control, were implemented into functional virtual prototype (FVP) model and compared in terms of road friendliness and ride comfort. A four-axle heavy truck-road coupling system model was established using FVP technology and validated through a ride comfort test. Then appropriate passive air suspensions were chosen to replace the rear tandem suspensions of the original truck model for preliminary optimization. The mechanical properties and time lag of dampers were taken into account in simulations of MSD and PID semi-active dampers implemented using MATLAB/Simulink. Through co-simulations with Adams and MATLAB, the effects of semi-active MSD and PID control were analyzed and compared, and control parameters which afforded the best comprehensive performance for each control strategy were chosen. Simulation results indicate that compared with the passive air suspension truck, semi-active MSD control improves both ride comfort and road-friendliness markedly, with optimization ratios of RMS vertical acceleration and RMS tyre force ranging from 10.1% to 44.8%. However, semi-active PID control only reduces vertical vibration of the driver's seat by 11.1%, 11.1% and 10.9% on A, B and C level roads respectively. Both strategies are robust to the variation of road level.

Adaptive Controller for Vehicle Active Suspension Generated Through LMS Filter Algorithms

The least means squares （LMS） adaptive filter algorithm was used in active suspension system. By adjusting the weight of adaptive filter, the minimum quadratic performance index was obtained. For two-degree-of-freedom vehicle suspension model, LMS adaptive controller was designed. The acceleration of the sprung mass,the dynamic tyre load between wheels and road,and the dynamic deflection between sprung mass and unsprung mass were determined as the evaluation targets of suspension performance. For LMS adaptive control suspension, compared with passive suspension, acceleration power spectral density of sprung mass acceleration under the road input model decreased 8-10 times in high frequency resonance band or low frequency resonance band. The simulation results show that LMS adaptive control is simple and remarkably effective. It further proves that the active control suspension system can improve both the riding comfort and handling safety in various operation conditions, and the method is fit for the active control of the suspension system.

Dynamic Resonant Frequency Bands of Suspension System of Vehicles with Varying Speeds Based on Time⁃Frequency Spectrum

The dynamic responses of suspension system of a vehicle travelling at varying speeds are generally nonstationary random processes,and the non-stationary random analysis has become an important and complex problem in vehicle ride dynamics in the past few years.This paper proposes a new concept,called dynamic frequency domain(DFD),based on the fact that the human body holds different sensitivities to vibrations at different frequencies,and applies this concept to the dynamic assessment on non-stationary vehicles.The study mainly includes two parts,the first is the input numerical calculation of the front and the rear wheels,and the second is the dynamical response analysis of suspension system subjected to non-stationary random excitations.Precise time integration method is used to obtain the vertical acceleration of suspension barycenter and the pitching angular acceleration,both root mean square(RMS)values of which are illustrated in different accelerating cases.The results show that RMS values of non-stationary random excitations are functions of time and increase as the speed increases at the same time.The DFD of vertical acceleration is finally analyzed using time-frequency analysis technique,and the conclusion is obviously that the DFD has a trend to the low frequency region,which would be significant reference for active suspension design under complex driving conditions.

Design and evaluation of cab seat suspension system based on negative stiffness structure

To improve the vibration-isolation performance of cab seats,the optimization model of the seat suspension system of construction machinery cabs is proposed based on the negative stiffness structure.The negative stiffness nonlinear kinetic equation is established by designing the seat negative stiffness suspension structure(NSS).Using MATLAB,the different parameters of the suspension system and their influences on the dynamic stiffness are analyzed.The ideal configuration parameter range of the suspension system is obtained.Meanwhile,the optimization model of NSS is proposed,and the vibration transmissibility characteristics are simulated and analyzed by different methods.The results show that the displacement and acceleration amplitudes of the optimized seat suspension system are evidently reduced,and the four-time power vibration dose value and root mean square calculation values in the vertical vibration direction of the seat decrease by 86%and 87%,respectively.Seat effective amplitude transmissibility(SEAT)and the vibration transmissibility ratio values also decrease.Moreover,the peak frequencies of the vibration transmitted to the driver deviate from the key frequency values,which easily cause human discomfort.Thus,the design of the seat suspension system has no effect on the health condition of the driver after being vibrated.The findings also illustrate that the NSS suspension system has good vibration-isolation performance,and the driver's ride comfort is improved.

Influences of the Suspension Parameters on the Vehicle Suspension Performance for a Terrain Vehicle

This paper describes an effective methodology for evaluation of the suspension parameters intended to be used for a terrain vehicle. The objective of this approach is to make quick analyses of the sensitivity of the vehicle suspension parameters. For the purpose of developing such a methodology, a mathematical modeling of a quarter vehicles suspension system is developed. Sensitive analysis of the suspension parameters is performed by employing the standard deviation of the vehicle body acceleration, dynamic tire load, and suspension travel. Sensitivity analysis results have shown that the spring stiffness, damping coefficient, tire stiffness and sprung mass have substantial influence on the ride comfort and road holding, while un-sprung mass on the other side has much lower impact in performance of the vehicle suspension system.