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Vehicle dynamics models often assume that the suspension attachment locations on the chassis are fixed and do not deform. However, this is not always a good assumption as the chassis can deform causing the suspension-to-chassis attachment locations to move in response to the forces transmitted through the suspension. When the suspension attachment points move, the kinematic and compliance properties of the suspensions can be affected. This can create a feedback situation where the chassis deformation affects the suspension response which affects the chassis loading. When developing a vehicle dynamics model, the chassis is usually modeled as either a rigid member, as a series of lumped masses, or as a multi-body structure. The progression from rigid body to lumped mass to multi-body chassis models generally improves the resulting simulations as the estimation of suspension behavior improves.

When modeling the dynamic behavior of a vehicle with a flexible chassis, it is often necessary to model the deformation of the chassis in order to obtain accurate simulation results. Typical solutions for managing the deformation of the chassis require a trade-off between model simplicity (e.g. lumped mass models) and model realism (e.g. multi-body models). In this work, a different approach for modeling the chassis is proposed where the chassis is permitted to deform in bending and torsion similar to how a real chassis would. The proposed chassis model is a simple finite element model of the chassis which offers realistic deformations with relatively low computational requirements. The proposed chassis model manages vertical and lateral bending deformations as well as torsional deformation.