Influence of a shock absorber model on vehicle dynamic simulation

Abstract

The dynamic simulation of mechanical systems is an essential tool in vehicle design. This work analyses the influence of a shock absorber model on a vehicle's dynamic behaviour by means of a simulation-based model. The real behaviour of a European medium-range car shock absorber has been obtained by means of a test rig. From the damper's real behaviour, three mathematical models were generated, increasing the complexity. An existing full vehicle simulation application (CarSim™) was used for this particular study. The vehicle's behaviour was analysed for typical driving manoeuvres taking into account lateral, vertical, and longitudinal forces and was compared with the results obtained with the different shock absorber models developed. As a result of this paper, it was demonstrated that, in order to obtain results with an acceptable level of accuracy, it is not necessary to rely on extremely complex shock absorber models.