COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING ROORKEE

ALL TERRAIN VEHICLE

An All Terrain Vehicle is a versatile automobile that can move on all kinds of terrains viz. sand, mud, earth mounds, stones or any other kind of uneven surfaces.

The critical areas of failure are generally:

1.
2. 3.

Rear roll hoop members

Side impact members USM(under set member).
Rear Roll Hoop Side Impact Member

The material selection for the pipe is very crucial as is its thickness.
The minimum thickness is recommended to be 3mm. Other values may also be adopted and tested as per requirement till the satisfactory results(strength) are obtained.

MATERIAL SELECTION FOR ROLL CAGE

A proper equilibrium should be acquired between the design requirements, cost and weight. The available materials that fulfil the requirements are AISI 1018, 1020, IS1239part-1 and 4130. Some of the materials with their properties are given in the following table:
Table 1: Material property

SUSPENSION SYSTEM
Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels and allows relative motion between the two. Suspension systems serve following purposes:
1.

They contribute to the vehicle's road holding/handling and braking.

They keep the vehicle reasonably well isolated from road noise, bumps, and vibrations, etc. They support the vehicles sprung and unsprung mass.

2.

3.

TYPES OF SUSPENSION SYSTEMS

1. 2. 3.

Coil springs- A round spring steel rod wound into a coil. Leaf Springs- Several flexible steel plates of graduated length stacked over one another. Torsion Bars-A straight rod of spring steel fastened to one end of the body. As the control arm moves up & down, torsion bar twists to provide spring action. Air spring- Rubber cylinder or air bag filled with compressed air. This air provides spring acton.

4.

SOME IMPORTANT TERMS

1.

Sprung mass: It consists of the weight of the vehicle which is supported by the springs. eg. Roll cage, chassis, driver etc. Unsprung mass: It consists the weight of the vehicle that is not supported by the springs. eg. Tires, drivetrain components etc. Roll centre: It is the nominal point in the vehicle at which the cornering forces in the suspension are reacted to the vehicle body. Scrub radius: Distance between the king pin axis and the centre of the contact patch of the wheel.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Jacking force: Sum of the vertical force components experienced by the suspension links.

DESIGN OF ATV SUSPENSION SYSTEM

The design of suspension is done to meet the following requirement:
1.

Controlled movement of wheel during vertical suspension travel and steering. Adjusting static roll centre adequately to minimize the jacking forces and tendency of vehicle to roll.

2.

3.

Limit the value of tire scrub (scrub radius) to improve straight line ability of vehicle.
Adjustment of weight distribution in front and rear to improve the vehicles jumping performance.

4.

TOOLS USED IN DESIGNING SUSPENSIONS

1.

CAD modelling of mac pherson strut in PRO-ENGINEER CREO ELEMENTS 5.0. Computations done in SHARK analyser software by LOTUS Inc. Stress analysis done in ANSYS 13.0

2. 3.

CAD MODELLING

MAC PHERSON STRUT

SELECTION OF CONTROL ARMS

1. 2. 3.

Double wishbone unequal non parallel U+A arm. To provide enough clearance or more working space. Also helps in mounting the shock arms near the ball joints so as to minimize the bending moment produced by sprung mass.

DESIGN OF FRONT AND REAR SUSPENSION

I. II.

Track width at front and rear is assumed independently. Baseline geometry is designed, several values fed into SHARK (Lotus suspension analyser) to get the results. After optimization in SHARK, different suspension parameters evaluated. Certain parameters are: toe gain -.27, static roll center 11.5 in king pin inclination 5.1deg etc. Suspension travel calculated is 6 and 4 inches for bump and rebound respectively.

III.

IV.

V.

SPRING AND DAMPER

FOX FLOAT AIRSHOX having adjustable damping coefficient is chosen keeping design and terrain in mind. The damper has integrated infinitely progressive spring rate. This provides ground clearance adjustability according to terrain. The spring rate is calculated as 26N/mm for front and 29N/mm for rear assuming sprung mass to unsprung mass ratio as 10:1 and wheel natural frequency as 1.95 for front and 2.1 for rear. The required spring rate is calculated from the following formula:

k(wheel) = (M.R)^2 * k(spring)

SUSPENSION ANALYSIS IN SHARK

Following are the graphs as a result of suspension analysis done in SHARK :