Search Results

In the current commercial vehicles market, ride-comfort and handling are crucial parameters for the customer and end user. There are various aspects which determine the vehicle behavior. One of aspects is the structural rigidity of the vehicle, which has its own effect on vehicle dynamics. To meet the required stiffness of the main structural component of the vehicle i.e. chassis frame, FEA analysis has to be done in current methodology. The number of iterations have to be done to build an appropriate model with low weight, which can meet the design requirements. At first, conceptual design mock-up unit is to be developed then FEA (CAE) analysis to be done on it. If any design criteria are not met, then this cycle repeats again until it fulfils the required stiffness. Today, the direct stiffness procedure is the basic principle of almost every FEA software package.

Tractor-semitrailers make up large proportion of heavy commercial vehicles, handling stability of tractor-semitrailers is critical to driving safety. Handling behavior of Tractor-semitrailers is complex and depends on various parameters. This paper presents a mathematical approach & multi body dynamics (MBD) simulation based study to gain an insight as to, how changes to different parameters of the articulated vehicle affect it’s handling behavior and thus to obtain an optimized design in terms of vehicle handling. A Full vehicle multi body dynamic model is created and steady state cornering maneuvers are performed on simulation tool MSC ADAMS/View for calculating understeer gradient using constant radius test method. Various parameters affecting understeer gradient are identified, studied and their relative effect on understeer gradient is measured. These critical parameters were then optimized using MSC ADAMS/View tool to achieve the desired handling targets.