Search Results

Steering and suspension system has to be designed properly to achieve improved handling characteristics. Improper design of steering systems will result in steering errors such as bump steer and roll steer. These steering errors results in reduced steering performance. During the design of steering system the tie rod length has to be properly selected to reduce these steering errors. The purpose of the work is to analyze the effects of tie rod length variation on bump steer. Multi body dynamic model of the selected vehicle was created using MSC ADAMS Car software. Ideal design of steering system to achieve zero bump steer was created. The tie rod length was later varied up to 10% to study the effect of varying length on bump steer. Parallel wheel travel analysis was conducted to study the tie rod length variation on bump steer. Acceleration test was conducted on a flat road having bump to analyze the effect of changing tie rod length on steering performance of the vehicle.

Vehicle dynamics is the study of response of the vehicle to driver’s input. Various parameters like location of center of gravity (CG), suspension spring stiffness, wheel alignment parameters, etc. determine the handling behavior of the vehicle. This is a study to investigate the effects of aforesaid parameters on handling characteristics of an intercity bus using MSC ADAMS software tool. Handling performance is determined by evaluating various parameters such as understeer gradient, roll gradient, etc. Understeer gradient is influenced by various parameters like location of CG, tire cornering stiffness, etc. Roll gradient of a vehicle depend on various parameters like vertical stiffness of tires, anti-roll bars (ARB) diameter, location of CG, etc. As a part of this study, four different configurations of MBD models were built to investigate the effect of location of ARB on handling behavior of bus. Several vehicle dynamic tests are virtually conducted on the MBD model of the bus.