Design, Development, Testing and Optimization of a Vehicle Suspension Systems accounting the Effect of Road Profile using MATLAB/SIMULINK.

I) Introduction:
Ride comfort is the most important demand in vehicle industry as it directly affects the sales amount. For that reason a lot of effort had been made to improve ride comfort by isolating vehicle from road irregularities as much as possible. The desired objective is proposed as the minimization of a seat suspension deflection, seat body acceleration and human body head acceleration, by choosing optimal vehicle suspension parameters. Ride comfort is subjective to human perception; its not a quantitative parameter. Majority of research efforts have been focused on devising a qualitative measure of passenger comfort (also referred to as human response to vibration). Passenger comfort principally depends on magnitude and direction of acceleration and the frequency of vibrations acted on his body. The ISO 2631-1:1997 standard specifies a method of evaluation of the effect exposure to vibration on humans by weighting the root mean square (RMS) acceleration with human vibration-sensitivity.

One important point is that: we cannot change the suspension system stiffness and damping coefficients, to reach desired vibration isolation, without taking into consideration two other aspects of suspension mechanism which are important in its performance: 1.road holding and 2.suspension travel, these parameters are to be considered as constraints in the problem of finding optimum values of suspension damping and stiffness.

Fig. Damping compromise for passive dampers

From the above diagram it is clearly understood that, a heavily damped suspension will yield good vehicle handling, but also transfers much of the road input to the vehicle body. When the vehicle is travelling at low speed on a rough road or at high speed in a straight line, this will be perceived as a harsh ride. The vehicle operators may find the harsh ride objectionable, or it may damage cargo. A lightly damped suspension will yield a more comfortable ride, but can significantly reduce the stability of the vehicle in turns, lane change maneuvers, or in negotiating an exit ramp. Good design of a passive suspension can some extent optimize ride and stability, but cannot eliminate this compromise

Fig. ISO 2631-1:1985 fatiguedecreased proficiency boundary :vertical acceleration limits as a function of frequency and exposure time Fatigue decreased proficiency boundaries for various exposure times in vertical direction are represented by above diagram. As it is clear in the proposed diagram, the comfort boundaries will decrease by rising the vibration durations. It should mention that also the human body is more sensitive in some critical frequencies i.e. 4 to 8 Hz, while during longitudinal vibration i.e. less than 2 Hz.

Methodology of Researchwork:
II) Model development for Optimization: Construction of human body models for the simulation of vibration exposure characteristics is not a unique process (Tregoubov, 2000). The same exact data can be produced from different models and several sets of model parameters in accordance with the experimental data. In the literature, one may find a number of different models ranging from several dof (Wei and Griffin, 1998) to comparatively higher dof (Arirouche and Ider, 1988; Kim et al., 2003; Qassem, 1996) systems with linear (Alkhatib et al., 2004) or non-linear (Rakheja et al., 1994; Wan and Schimmels, 2003) parameters. Since the aim of this study is to propose an optimization method to the suspension and seat designers and to attract their attention to important metrics of such a design, a simplest form of human body model has been chosen to study with. In particular, a four-dof dynamic model for a car suspension system (Fig. 1) is established to optimize the dynamic response of the car and driver system in a way to minimize the force transmitted to the lower back and to minimize the acceleration of head and upper body.
mt mp ms mu :Mass of Upper body and Head (kg) :Mass of Lower body and Seat (kg) :Sprung mass (kg) :Sprung mass (kg)

Cs & Ks :Suspension damping co-eff (Ns/m) and stiffness (N/m) respectively. Cc & Kc :Cushion damping co-eff (Ns/m) and stiffness (N/m) respectively. Ct & Kt : Thorax and Pelvis damping co-eff (Ns/m) and stiffness (N/m) respectively. Ky :Tyre stiffness (N/m)

Zs & Zu :Displacement of sprung and unsprung mass from static equilibrium positions(m) Zp & Zt :Displacements of the thorax and pelvis from their static equilibrium positions (m) Zr :Displacement of Tire as per Road Profile (m)

The dynamic equations of motion for the system can be described by the following differential equations from their static equilibrium positions:

III)

Optimization and Analysis:

a) Objective functions of the optimum design: The performance characteristics which are of most interest when designing the vehicle suspension are : 1.Passenger ride comfort, related to passenger RMS acceleration, 2. Road holding, related to the tyre displacement ( Zr-Zu ) 3. Suspension travel, related to relative distance between the unsprung and sprung mass ,( Zu Zs ) b) Design Variables of the optimum design: Equations from 1 to 4 are used in conjunction with multi-objective programming (MOP) to find the optimal suspension design variables symbolically, ensuring the best compromise among comfort, road holding and Suspension travel in reference to the design variables, i.e., suspension stiffness (Ks) and damping co-efficient (Cs), are considered as stochastic variables. c) Input Profile Excitations: The excitation input from the road is transmitted to the vehicle floor. For the simplification of the dynamic modeling, it is assumed that there exists only the vertical motion of the vehicle. The sinusoidal profile is firstly used, which is described by:

A is the hump height. D is the width of the hump, and Vc is the vehicle velocity. the other excitation inputs can be used as, 1) Step Response: Input is a constant value. 2) Ramp Response: Input is proportional to time (T). 3) Parabolic Response: Input is proportional to the square of time

d) Numerical Simulations: Displacement, velocity, and acceleration of the model in terms of time domain are obtained by solving equations 1 to 4, using MATLAB software dynamic system simulation software, Simulink model of the suspension with human-body system. we can optimized the suspension system for the various design parameter such as, spring stiffness, damping coefficient, dimension of orifice and different types of reinforced materials for improving the performance characteristics. Validation of the mathematical model by experimental data obtained from an experimental set-up, which is to be designed and developed or from standard set-up available in various automobile industries in and around Pune or at Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), a research organization under Govt. of India

Objectives of Research:
a)

Develop the mathematical model which includes human bio-mechanical parameters of Quartercar system for calculating the steady-state component of the transmitted vertical acceleration. Vibration analysis in automotive engineering by evaluating the vibration transmitted from the road profile to a driver, or a passenger, in a moving vehicle as per ISO 2631 methodology. Verify the mathematical model by comparing updating model with identified parameters from experiments.

b)

c)

Scopes of the Study: a) Study of Quarter-car Models under Road Excitation with different road profile b) Mathematical Model is developed with computational techniques. c) Study of different types of Road Profile model. d) Experimental analysis of suspension characteristics.

Impacts or Benefits from Research: a) Understand vehicle behaviors which are affected by suspension parameters. b) Obtain design and optimization of vehicle suspension. c) Obtain vehicle model for predicting vehicle responses when changing the parameters. Understand experiment method of road testing