Search Results

There are numerous parameters that affect the handling characteristics of ground vehicles. Among those, lateral and torsional body stiffness plays a major role. Increasing the body stiffness not only improves the handling characteristics, [1] but also other properties like crashworthiness, [6], Noise Vibration & Harshness [NVH], and durability, [2], [3]. But a body with high stiffness, demands a higher weight and cost because of the increased panel thickness required and reinforcement members. Car manufactures try to reduce the vehicle weight to improve the fuel efficiency, because this is one of the primary criteria based on which customers purchase vehicles. In the process of achieving a light weight body, the body stiffness may suffer. As a result of many earlier studies, it is known that increase in stiffness of the vehicle body improves the handling of the vehicle, [2].

In a highly competitive market, one of the major challenges for an automobile designer is to lower the product cost while improving the performance. Therefore, from the vehicle comfort point of view, achieving a good ride, handling and NVH performance, while satisfying the low cost and low weight target needs attention from the concept stage of the development cycle. To achieve this balance, it is important to optimize the static and dynamic stiffness of the vehicle body. This paper focuses on the effect of vehicle body stiffness on the ride, handling and NVH parameters. It also addresses the relation between static and dynamic stiffness of the vehicle. The correlation of the stiffness values with the ride, handling and NVH performance is also studied through various experiments on the actual vehicle