3793. Effects of Mass and Pitch Moment of Inertia on Vehicle Suspension Design With Race Car Example

Paper

Abstract

The present paper addresses the topic of studying the influence of the main vehicle inertia parameters on the suspension design. A simple four degrees-of-freedom half-car model is used to describe the dynamic behaviour of vehicles running on randomly profiled roads. The response of the system is analysed by evaluating three performance indexes, namely driver discomfort, road holding and working space, referring to the standard deviations of driver seat vertical acceleration, force at ground and relative displacement between wheels, respectively. The effect of varying wheel mass, vehicle mass, centre of gravity longitudinal location and pitch moment of inertia on the three performance indexes is investigated. The proposed approach is applied to the design of the suspension system of a vehicle conceived for efficiency-based competitions. Based on these results, considerations on the best location for battery pack and ballast are drawn.