An investigation on effect of stiffness &damping on drivers riding comfort and vehicle stability

ABSTRACT
The effects of stiffness and shock damping on the vertical acceleration of the drivers body, suspension deformation and dynamic wheel load were investigated, with the purpose to define recommendations for selecting oscillation parameters of the suspension system. Oscillatory responses were analyzed by means of a oscillatory model with linear characteristics and three degrees of freedom, with excitation by the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the roughness of asphalt-concrete pavement in good condition. The analysis was conducted through a simulation, in frequency domain, using statistical dynamics equations. A program created in the software pack MATLAB was used to analysis the transfer functions, power spectral density and RMS of oscillatory parameters. The results of the analysis show that the parameters which ensured good oscillatory comfort of the driver were conflicting with the parameters which ensured the greatest stability of the vehicle.

INTRODUCTION
Background
The vehicular vibration and the resulting dynamic wheel loads are influenced by various design and operating parameters in a highly complex manner. Among the various design and operating parameters, vehicle suspension properties, road roughness, and speed are known to affect the road and driver friendliness, where the driver friendliness relates the ride quality environment of the vehicle. The handling, directional control and stability, ride quality, and suspension rattle space performance characteristics of the vehicle, however, pose conflicting design requirements for suspension design. While soft suspension springs are desirable to enhance the ride quality and wheel load performance, the realization of adequate rattle space performance necessitates relatively hard suspension springs, The suspension springs are thus selected to achieve a compromise

among these conflicting requirements, with relatively larger weighting placed on the drivers comfort level and vehicle stability.

Aim and Objective

Both the dynamic wheel loads and the ride quality are related to vehicular vibration modes, An analogy between the dynamic wheel loads and the ride quality performance characteristics of heavy vehicles is to established through analysis of a linear quartervehicle model to illustrate the potential benefits of optimal damping., the suspension damping considered adequate for improved ride quality Assuring negligible contributions due to pitch and roll motion due of vehicle.

Literature Survey
Dedovi, 2004; Demi and Diligenski, 2003.have formulised a linerar oscillatory model of bus in matrix form and computed values of natural frequencies of bus. Dragan Sekuli1, Vlastimir Dedovi2 have formulised transfer functions of the oscillatory system, drivers vertical acceleration, bus suspension deflection and dynamic wheel load in complex form. (Kawamura and Kaku, 1985) stated In the frequency range 0.5 Hz to 50 Hz the pavement roughness has the most significant impact on the vehicles oscillatory behavior (wong,2001) provides the values of the roughness coefficient Csp and wave number N for the asphalt-concrete pavement in good condition, (Wong, J. Y. 2001) has provided to methodology to calculate PSD & RMS of Drivers vertical acceleration, suspension deformation & wheel load& (ISO 2631. 1978) has listed comfort criteria for different accelerations.