ANALYSIS OF THE KINEMATICS AND COMPLIANCE OF A PASSIVE SUSPENSION SYSTEM USING ADAMS CAR

Abstract

The experimental approach is usually used as the way to develop or modify a suspension system to obtain maximum ride comfort and handling characteristics. This approach is a time-consuming process, costly, and may not guarantee the optimum solution. Thus, to avoid this, a virtual vehicle suspension system is necessary. In this paper, a half-car body of an actual suspension system based on the PROTON WRM 44 P0-34 was modeled and simulated. In total, 10 components comprised each front McPherson strut and rear multilink suspension consisting of different joint types and a number of degrees of freedom. The model was developed by defining the location of the hard point or coordinate before specifying the component characteristics and joint type. The completed suspension model was simulated using the vertical parallel and vertical oppose movement test, the same tests conducted with the actual experimental parameter setup. The kinematics and compliance (K&C) of the simulation is compared with the experimental data to verify the suspension model. The outcome from the simulation showed a verified virtual suspension system model with a very minimum percentage of error and different characteristics of the static performance of the suspension system when subjected to the test as explained further in the paper.