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A hybrid approach to predict road-induced loads in vehicle structures is presented. The technique involves full vehicle dynamic simulation using measured wheel forces, absolute wheel vertical displacements, and steering angle as input. The wheel vertical displacement is derived from the measured wheel acceleration. This approach avoids the use of tire-road interface modeling. It also improves the conventional loads measuring process with minimum instrumentation and data acquisition. Existing load data from a test vehicle is used to validate this approach. Computed component loads show good agreement with measurements.

This paper concerns the finite element method as applied to the analysis of small oscillations about the non-linear equilibrium position in elastomeric components. The capability, which was developed at Ford, has been implemented in the general-purpose finite element program, MARC. The material behavior is treated by use of a modified form of the constitutive equations derived by Lianis [Proc. Fourth International Congress on Rheology, Pt. 2, 109 (1965)] using the finite linear viscoelasticity theory of Coleman and Noll [Rev. Mod. Phys., 33 239 (1961)]. In order to establish numerical accuracy, program predictions are compared with a closed form solution for the torsional and axial vibrations in a cylinder under axial and twisting pre-loads: differences between the finite element solutions and exact results are less than two (2) percent.