127 The Low Mass Vehicle

II.6 Chassis

II.6.1 Suspension Design and Analysis

RESEARCHER Taehyun Shim
ASSISTANT Pradheep C Velusamy

BACKGROUND
With a growing demand for improved fuel
efficiency and reduced emission, all major
automotive companies are introducing
lightweight vehicles. The Institute for Advanced
Vehicle Systems (IAVS) at the University of
Michigan-Dearborn has also initiated the Low
Mass Vehicle (LMV) project and completed its
first phase, which developed the body structure
of the LMV. This project focused on the
analysis and design of the suspension system
for the already developed LMV body structure.

OBJECTIVES
The goal of this project is to develop the
suspension system for the LMV, which has a
30% weight reduction compared to the Toyota
Echo, without compromising the ride and
handling performance. The developed
suspension system must provide the same level
of performance as the Toyota Echo even though
there are significant vehicle parameter
variations including weight, track, wheelbase,
etc.


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APPROACH
In order to achieve the objectives, the following
steps were performed:
1. A computer-based vehicle model for a
Toyota Echo was developed using the
ADAMS program. The performance targets
in ride quality and handling of the Toyota
Echo were estimated using data of a typical
small size car (class C) found in the
literature.
2. Based on the performance target determined
in the previous step, the necessary
suspension design factors (camber, toe, roll,
roll center height, anti-dive/anti-lift) were
determined. Then the variations due to
vehicle parameter changes were assessed.
3. On the basis of the study, the possibility of a
new suspension (or other types of
suspension) design were proposed. The
overall characteristics of the full vehicle
model and the required suspension design
specifications were documented.

RESULTS
Figure 1 shows the comparison of toe angle
changes due to wheel travel between the
ADAMS model and measured data. Since the
toe angle changes significantly affect the
vehicle handling in steady state cornering
(bump steer), it is important to correlate the toe
curve with measured data. As shown in Figure
1, the toe angle characteristics due to wheel
129 The Low Mass Vehicle

travel are close to each other between the
ADAMS model and measured data.
A step-steer maneuver is one of the methods
typically used for the analysis of vehicle
handling. Figure 2 shows the response of a
steering angle vs. lateral acceleration during 60
mph step-steer maneuver. As shown in Figure
2, the required steering angle to generate lateral
acceleration between model and measured data
is perfectly matched in the linear region. This
indicates that the understeer coefficients are
close to each other.


Figure 1. Comparison of toe angle changes due to wheel
travel between ADAMS model and measured data.


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Figure 2. Comparison of steering angle vs. lateral
acceleration in 60mph step-steer test ADAMS model and
measured data.

Tie-rod, lower control arm and strut hardpoint
locations of the front Macpherson suspension
were critical in matching toe and camber
response to the test data. The hardpoints were
chosen iteratively by trial and error. Hardpoint
location changes required to achieve this
correlation are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Original and Modified Hardpoints of Macpherson
suspension
Hardpoint Original Modified
X Y Z X Y Z
LCA
Outer
0 -750 150 0 -750 132
Tierod
Inner
200 -400 300 200 -400 289
Top
Mount
57.5 -603.8 800 57.5 -605 800

The yaw rate responses between model and
measured data during 60 mph step-steer are
131 The Low Mass Vehicle

compared in Figure 3. The yaw rate
response of the model well tracks well with
the actual measured yaw rate.



Figure 3. Comparison of yaw velocity in 60mph step-steer
test ADAMS model and measured data.

CONCLUSIONS
Suspension systems have been designed for
a lightweight vehicle using the
ADAMS/Car, a multi-body dynamics
program, and its handling response
benchmarked with a reference vehicle. Both
static response (kinematics and compliance)
and dynamic response were correlated to a
good extent. The step-steer response of the
LMV in various loading configurations was
also evaluated. To keep deviations in
handling at a minimum between fully loaded
and empty vehicles, variable rate springs
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have been used for the twist beam rear
suspension of the LMV.

IMPACT
Educational:
Throughout this project, faculty and students
have experienced the realistic design of an
automotive suspension system and the effect on
vehicle performance due to parameter
variations. The vehicle model and its
components were developed using the ADAMS
program. The results can be used as a valuable
case study for ME 542 Advanced Dynamics and
AENG 502 Modeling of Automotive Systems.

Industrial:
Critical suspension design parameters for
vehicle roll dynamics were identified during
this project and adjusted to improve roll
stability of the vehicle model with passive
suspension. This approach provides a viable
alternative to costlier active control systems for
economy class vehicles.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The financial support from the Institute for
Advanced Vehicle Systems (IAVS) is gratefully
acknowledged.