Suspension Systems & Ride Dynamics

Asst. Prof.Dr. Erdem UZUNSOY

uzunsoy@yildiz.edu.tr http://www.yildiz.edu.tr/~uzunsoy
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VEHICLE SUSPENSION SYSTEMS

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Basic Functions
Ride Comfort:

1.

It isolates the vehicle and the passengers from the road inputs

2.

Better Road Holding:

For a better traction, braking, steering and stability, it provides the contact between the road and the tyre.

3.

Improvement of Handling:
By locating the tyres in a correct position, provides easy steering and improves vehicle handling characteristics.

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Basic Components

A Suspension System must first provide an elastic stiffness which would absorb the shocks produced by the road. This is provided by the suspension springs:

Leaf Springs Helical Springs Torsion bars (spring) Air Springs Bushings

If the absorbed energy is not dissipated vehicle continuous to oscillate up and down. For this reason, a shock absorber which converts the mechanical energy into the heat energy is necessary. YT

Suspension Geometry
For a good steering and the least tyre wear, front tyre geometry must be aligned. Properly. The term of suspension geometry incudes the concepts of Camber, Castor, King Pin, Toe-in out and Scrub radius.

Camber Angle Angle between the central plane of symmetry of the wheel and the vertical plane at the centre of the contact patch Aligns the wheel load with the point of contact of the tyre on the road surface In other words; it is known as tyre wearing angle Produces additional lateral force at the tyre For Automobiles and independent suspension 0- 0.25 It chages with changing steer angle and is controlled by the suspension system Negative camber at the front tyres improves the cornering ability of a sports vehicle.
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Suspension Geometry
Caster Angle The purpose of the caster is to keep the front wheels in a straight position. also assist in returning the wheels to a straight-ahead position. is not a wearing angle Amount of caster, depending on the weight of the vehicle, varies between (3 and 6). For easier steering a small caster is required. Negative caster result in poor directional control unless the accompanying steering axis inclination is properly chosen. However, that negative caster is normally used for the rear wheel steered vehicles. Caster results in negative (-) camber of the outside wheel during cornering and thus increases cornering force and oversteer tendency.
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Suspension Geometry

Caster will also assist in returning the wheels to a straight ahead position. This effect is obtained through an additional torque around the centre of the tyre contact patch when the wheel is steered.
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Suspension Geometry

Kingpin (Steering axis) Angle Steering axis inclination is the angle in degrees that the axis of the steering knuckles is tilted towards the vehicle vertical, as viewed from the front of the vehicle. It is fixed during the assembly of the suspension system and is non-adjustable. The purpose of the steering axis inclination is the same as that of the camber It causes the front end of the vehicle to rise as the wheel is turned. Therefore a self aligning torque is produced resulting in better directional stability. Produces (+) camber at the outside wheel during cornering. This property can be used for increasing understeer characteristics. 3-7 degrees for passenger cars: Higher values being used for lighter vehicles. For trucks itis reduced down to zero degrees In some vehicles, negative offset is used to improve stability during tyre blowout on YT one wheel. 8

Suspension Geometry

Toe-in | Toe-out

When the distance between the wheels on the same axle is smaller at yhe front, the difference is called toe-in. Similarly if the distance between the wheels on the same axle is smaller at the rear, the difference is called toe-out Toe-out genellikle dz bir kullanmda direksiyon balantlarndaki elastiklikten, ypranm paralardan ve virajda d tekerlek ile i tekerlein farkl alarda dnmesinden kaynaklanr. Kamber asndan dolay; tekerlek ekseni uzatlacak olursa yolu bir noktada kesecektir. Tekerlek bu nokta etrafnda bir koni gibi dnme eilimi gsterir. Bylece ayn akstaki lastiklerin birbirinden uzaklama eilimi doar. Toe-out causes the tyre wear and bump steer. Toe-in is introduced to overcome the effect of Toe-out Toe-in reduces the vibrations transmitted to steering wheels Toe-in on the other hand, causes the tyre wear and increases the rolling resistance YT Toe-out is angle difference, Toe-in is length difference 9

Vehicle Suspension Types

1.

2.

Rigid Axle suspensions Independent Suspension

Quality Measures:

Camber Angle Track Change with

Body Roll Wheel Travel

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Vehicle Suspension Types

Camber change, affects the handling behaviour. Therefore, it should be in accordance with the handling necessities. Track Change should not be allowed!...It affects longitudinal control, stability and ride comfort.

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Rigid Axle

Dead Front Axle

Live Axle

Rigid Axle Suspensions: Dead Axle: Wheels are not driven (All heavy vehicle front suspensions) Live Axle: Wheels are driven (4WD both front and rear suspensions)
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Rigid Axle

Rigid Axle Camber Change

Her 2 tip sabit aksta, tek tekerlein ykselmesi (sspansiyon hareket mesafesi) her iki tekerlekte kamber deiimine yolaar. Buna bal olarak ekildeki gibi iz genilii deiimi de olur. Buna karn gvde yalpasna bal kamber deiimi sabit akslarda sfr (0) dr.
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Rigid Axle
Dead Axle Suspensions

A - Arm

Panhard Rod

En basit tipler olup ticari aralarn nlerinde kullanlrlar. Sabit bir aks ve yaprak yaylar, aks yatay-dey ve dorusal ynde sabitler. Yaprak yaylar aks her 3 eksende sabitlemek durumunda olduundan konumlama hassas deildir. zellikle; yaprak yaylar yerine helisel yaylar kullanldnda aks dorusal ve yatayda bakaca bir ekilde sabitlenmelidir. En genel konfigrasyonlar; dorusal kollar ve yanal konumlama iin de ya bir Panhard ubuu ya da AYT Dirseini kullanr. 14

Rigid Axle

Dead Axle Helical Springs

Dead Axle Leaf Springs

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Rigid Axle

Dead Rear Axle in the Driven tyres De Dion

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Independent Suspension
Front Suspension Mac Pherson

Bir tekerlein hareketi dierini etkilemez

Mac Pherson Suspensions
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Independent Suspension
Advantages ok kk yanal boluk gerektirir Asl olmayan ktle kktr ve yukar-aa hareket ok az kamber deiimi yaratr Tekerlein konumu dey ynde koaksiyel snmleyici ve yay tarafndan kontrol edilir. Yanal hareket tekerlek gbeine kresel bir mafsalla bal iz kontrol ubuu ile kontrol edilir. Disadvantages Dey dorultuda nemli miktar boluk gerektirir, bu da daha dk C.Gli tat trendine uygun deildir. Yanal ykler Amortisrdeki srtnmeyi arttrarak seyir konforunu drr. Bu dezavantaj geometriyle oynayarak yenilebilir (ekil).

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Independent Suspension

Mac Pherson Force Diagram

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Independent SuspensionDouble Wishbone

American

cars after IInd World War 2 Lateral Control arms in different lengths Upper Arm (X) Lateral Links
Double Wishbone
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Independent SuspensionDouble Wishbone

Double Wishbone
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Independent SuspensionDouble Wishbone

Kollar paralel ve eit uzunluktaysa; kamber deiimi gvde yalpa asna eit olacaktr. Bylece virajda d tekerde gerekleecek (+) kamberle viraj gc der, tat az ynlendirme karakteristii kazanr. Tmseklerde kamber deiimi olmaz ve z genilii deiimi gerekleir. Bu nedenle modern tatlarda kullanlmaz! st kol ksaltlarak bir miktar kamber deiimine bal iz genilii sabit tutulabilir. Virajda gvde yalpasna bal kamber deiimi azaltlr Eit uzunlukta olmayp Paralel de olmayan kollar ile sspansiyon hareketinin belli bir ksm iin d tekerlek gvde yalpasndan soyutlanarak dik tutulabilir bylece de sabit iz genilii salanabilir.
Double Wishbone (salncak)
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Independent SuspensionDouble Wishbone

Motoru nde, Arkadan Tahrikli Tatlara uyumu iyi

Motora

Farkl uzunlukta kollarn kamber geometrisi:

D

daha geni alan salar Kurulumunu desteklemek ve yk tayabilmesi iin ayr ereve gerektirir.

E Uzunluktaki kollar tekerlekteki istenmeyen durumlar ortadan kaldrrken d tekerlekteki avantaj da kaldrr.
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tekerlekte Gvde Yalpasndan dolay kambere kar etki gstererek Kamberi dengeler Ancak genellikle daha az istenen i tekerlekte kambere yol aar.

Independent Suspension

Kk ticari aralarda kullanlr

Ksa salnma yarapna bal yksek kamber deiimi sz konusudur.

Sert virajda yksek viraj kuvveti reten d tekerlek gvde iine katlanr. (jacking) Ucuz
Swing Axle
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Independent Suspension

Multi link (5 link)

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Independent Suspension
It is used in high performance and Popular vehicles, in FWD. Ball joints decrease the bending moments 4 Link; provides both lateral and longitudinal contro of the tyre. It is similar to double wishbone. Sometimes, 5-Link is used (rod is the 5th link);

Limits

the wheel too much Toe control in Cornerings is better 26

Multi link

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Independent Suspension

Wolkswagen ve Porsche
Paralel, e uzunluktaki trailing armlar yanal Burulma ubuklarna bal Tekerlekler Gvdeye paralel kalr ve Kamberi gvdeyle yapar Sabit aksla karlatrldnda asl olmayan ktle nemli lde dktr
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Trailing Arm YT

Independent Suspension
Sa ve sol kol dnme eksenleri birbirleriyle akmazlar BMW ve Mercedes Swing Aks ve Trailing Arm (Gvdeye gre kamber deiimi yok) arasndaArka Teker Kamber Kontrol mmkn Pivot eksenleri 25

Semi Trailing Arm

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Independent Suspension

Semi Trailing Arm

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Denge ubuu

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Gvde Yalpa Merkezi

Tekerleklerde retilen Yanal Kuvvetin Asl Ktleye iletildii konumdur. Asl ve Asl olmayan ktle davranlarn, dolaysyla viraj davrann direk etkiler Sspansiyon Yalpa Merkezi: apraz Teker merkezlerinden geen dey dzlem iinde, yanal kuvvetlerin asl ktleye aktarlabildii ancak sspansiyon yalpas retmeyen noktadr.

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Body Roll Centre

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Roll Centre

Swing Axle Roll Centre

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Roll Centre

Esnek Dingil (Swing Axle) Yalpa Merkezi SemiTrailing Arm Roll Centre
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Assesment of Vehicle Ride

Vehicle ride is assessed in terms of the ability of the vehicle system to isolate the passenger from road inputs. Passenger discomfort is caused by

vibration transmitted to the passenger's body directly by rigid body motions of the vehicle structure, and the noise level in the passenger space caused by the flexible motions of the vehicle body.

The vibration and noise experienced by the passenger form the basic criteria for assessing how well a vehicle rides from a passenger comfort point of view.

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Assesment of Vehicle Ride

These are usually measured in terms of prescribed parameters (will be discussed) on the road going vehicle or using a vehicle ride simulation rig in the laboratory.

However, for development purposes, computer simulation of the roadgoing process can also be carried out using vehicle models which enable the vehicle ride performance to be optimised by varying various vehicle system parameters such as suspension and tyre stiffness and damping.
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Road Inputs

The inputs from the road into the vehicle at the tyre contact patch are generally described in terms of displacement Power Spectrum Density (PSD) functions of the form:

where, is the road undulation wave number and and are constants which depend on the road roughness. This may be converted to a function of vehicle speed and frequency using the relations;

S(f,U) = S()/U and = f/U.

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Road Inputs
where U is the vehicle speed. The variation of displacement power spectrum with road undulation wave number is illustrated in the Figure. This is used as the road input to the vehicle for vehicle ride simulations.
PSD shows the strength of the variations (energy) as a function of frequency. In other words, it shows at which frequencies variations are strong and at which frequencies variations are weak. The unit of PSD is energy per frequency (width) and you can obtain energy within a specific frequency range by integrating PSD within that frequency range.

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Vehicle Response
The response of the vehicle may be considered to be in two frequency regimes i.e. Low frequency (< 25 Hz) response which consists of mainly rigid body motion of the sprung mass and the unsprung masses. It is this motion that is normally characterised as ride. The motions generated are transmitted to the driver and passengers through the seats as well as by direct contact with the vehicle structure (e.g. feet contact with floor). Higher frequency response consisting of flexible modes of vibration and resonances of the body structure and associated sub-systems. This generates noise in the passenger compartment which is a source of annoyance/discomfort to the occupants.

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Suspension Isolation
One meaningful way of characterising the dynamic behaviour of a system is by the gain or transmissibility of the system. This simply represents the nondimensional ratio of the response amplitude to the input amplitude. The quarter-car model enables the isolation achieved at each corner of the vehicle from the road roughness to be examined. The suspension spring and tyre act in series to suspend the sprung mass acting at that corner of the vehicle. The effective stiffness provided by the suspension spring and tyre is referred to as the ride rate i.e.

where

Rr is the ride rate kt is the tyre stiffness ks is the suspension spring rate
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Suspension Isolation
If there were no damping, the bounce natural frequency at each corner of the vehicle is given by:

With damping, resonance occurs at the damped natural frequency d given by:
where,

s (zita) is the damping ratio given by:

where cs is the suspension damping.

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Suspension Isolation
For a modern passenger car the damping ratio is about 0.2 to 0.4, hence the damped natural frequency is between 98% and 92% of the undamped natural frequency. Hence, the undamped natural frequency n is commonly used to characterise the vehicle. Also, since the tyre stiffness is usually much greater than the suspension stiffness, the suspension stiffness has the predominant influence on the ride rate and hence the bounce natural frequency.

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Suspension Isolation
The static deflection thus determines the natural frequency to a large extent. The greater the static deflection (i.e. the softer the suspension spring) the lower the natural frequency. This relationship is given by:

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Suspension Isolation

For road roughness input, the gain or transmissibility is the ratio of the sprung-mass motion (acceleration, velocity or displacement) to the equivalent road input. At very low frequency the gain is unity.

Near the natural frequency, the road inputs are amplified, the gain being highest at the damped natural frequency.
The maximum gain is very sensitive to the damping level with typical values for passenger cars being in the range 1.5 to 3.0 while for heavy trucks it may be as high as 6.
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Suspension Isolation

At frequencies greater than the resonance frequency the road inputs are increasingly attenuated. The wheel hop resonance (9 - 13 Hz) tends to excite the sprung mass, thus adding a small hump to the response curve in the vicinity of this resonance. The typical road roughness spectrum shows the PSD acceleration increasing with frequency (Figure).

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Suspension Isolation

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Suspension Isolation
The sprung mass acceleration spectrum is obtained by multiplying the road spectrum by the square of the transfer function (i.e. transmissibility). The static deflection thus determines the natural frequency to a large extent. The greater the static deflection (i.e. the softer the suspension spring) the lower the natural frequency. This relationship is given by:

G(f)zs is acceleration PSD of sprung mass G(f)zr is acceleration PSD of road input H(f)v response gain for the road input.
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Suspension Isolation

Hence, the acceleration spectrum of the vehicle has a peak at the sprung mass resonant frequency. The vehicle acceleration spectrum is very similar to the vehicle response gain in spite of the road input acceleration increasing with frequency.

However, since road input acceleration increases with frequency, the peak vehicle acceleration will increase with the sprung mass resonant frequency.
It is thus desirable to keep the sprung mass resonant frequency as low as possible to achieve better isolation (i.e. soft suspension).
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Suspension Isolation

This may however conflict with the objective of keeping the suspension working space down to practical limits that can be accommodated within a given vehicle size and suspension envelope. A compromise is thus necessary and this limits the sprung mass resonant frequency to a minimum of 1 to 1.5 Hz for most cars. Performance cars, on which handling requires a stiffer suspension may have natural frequencies up to 2 to 2.5 Hz at the expense of poorer ride.

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Suspension Isolation
The sprung mass response to tyre/wheel excitation is obtained as the ratio:

This response rises from zero at 0 Hz through the sprung mass resonance frequency and rises through until the wheel hop resonance at around 10 to 12 Hz where the gain is unity. It then diminishes thereafter. This indicates that the vehicle will be most responsive to excitation resulting from tyre/wheel non-uniformities at or near the wheel hop frequency. The force here is transmitted directly to the vehicle.
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Suspension Isolation

The Figure shows the typical quarter-car response to road, tyre/wheel, and body inputs
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Criteria of Good Ride

The considerations so far are for one corner of the vehicle. Although the quarter vehicle model is a valid way of considering the ride behaviour of a vehicle in bounce, there are other modes of the full car such as pitch and roll which also affect ride performance. The interaction between the various modes is very important and can affect the overall ride performance adversely or for good depending on the spacing of the modes. Since the human sensitivity to vibration is highest in the 4 Hz to 8 Hz - ISO(or 2 Hz to 10 Hz according to NASA weightings), the sprung mass (bounce) frequency should be as far away from this range as possible. However, practical limits to suspension travel indicate that the bounce frequency cannot fall much below 1 Hz. It is therefore normal to aim for a bounce frequency of between 1 Hz and 1.5 Hz as indicated earlier.

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Criteria of Good Ride

The front suspension should have a lower ride rate than the rear suspension, i.e. the rear suspension bounce frequency should be higher than that of the front. This is to produce a flatter ride when the car traverses a road obstruction.

This allows the oscillations excited at the rear to 'catch up' with the oscillations at the front to produce a flatter ride as shown in the next slide

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Criteria of Good Ride

Pitching motion is thus converted into bounce which is less annoying. It is recommended that rear bounce frequency should be about 12% to 15% higher than front bounce frequency.

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Criteria of Good Ride

It is also recommended that pitch and bounce frequencies should be close together with the bounce frequency less than 1.2 times the pitch frequency. If the ratio is higher, interference kick effects between the two modes tend to be produced when they are superimposed.

The roll frequency should be approximately equal to the pitch frequency. This serves to minimise roll vibrations.

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Criteria of Good Ride

Vehicle ride may be simulated by formulating models of the vehicle which represent, to a large extent, the behaviour of the vehicle under ride conditions. It must be emphasised that such models are very much idealised, but they are very useful in vehicle development, and can produce quite accurate results under certain conditions.

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The Quarter Car Model

The quarter-car model considers the motion at one corner of the car only.

This ignores roll and pitch motions of the car.

This is a reasonable assumption for straight line motion on fairly smooth surfaces. Each wheel of the car is then assumed to support a share of the total weight due to the static distribution of the vehicle weight on the wheels.

In its simplest form, the quarter-car model is represented by a two degree of freedom model as shown in the figure.
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The Quarter Car Model

The tyre flexibility is represented by a parallel spring-damper system and the suspension also by a spring-damper system. The model is completed by the unsprung and sprung masses. The equations of motion is for the sprung and unsprung masses are given by:

If u is assumed to be harmonic, Equation may be written as:

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The Quarter Car Model

The two equations may be combined in matrix form as:

where,

The solution is given by:

The eigen-values of the matrix [Z] give the system natural frequencies.

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The Half Car Model

The half-car model in its simplest form consists of a rigid body supported by a wheel and suspension at the front and similarly at the rear. This model assumes symmetry of the car about the longitudinal axis as well as equal suspension characteristics for both front wheels and likewise for both rear wheels. Roll motion is ignored as the front wheels are assumed to move in unison and likewise the rear wheels.
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The Half Car Model

The equations of motion are as follows:

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