Date of Award

2016

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Mechanical, Automotive, and Materials Engineering

Keywords

Interconnected, Off-road, Suspension, Vehicle

Supervisor

Minaker, Bruce

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Comments

The suspension is an indispensable component of a vehicle that must be carefully designed to ensure good vehicle handling and safety. Over the years, many different kinds of suspension have been applied on vehicles. This thesis aims to develop a stable, comfortable and safe suspension for the University of Windsor SAE Baja off-road vehicle that improves performance by using an innovative interconnection in the suspension. A mechanism that connects the front and rear suspension on each side of the vehicle is mounted on the chassis. A virtual vehicle is designed in CATIA and a dynamic simulation is conducted using the so›ware tools EoM and Altair Motionview®. Multiple randomly generated ISO class road proÿles are used to excite the motion of the model. Several virtual sensors are installed in differnt positions of the vehicle to record motions of interest. Matlab® is used to analyze the outputs of the simulation. Results obtained from the model show that the interconnected suspension does provide reduced roll motion with less comfort penalty when compared to an anti-roll bar system, with advantages primarily showing in the low frequency domain, suggesting that the suspension is more appropriate to an off-road vehicle. However, the merit of the proposed design is below expecations, suggesting that further study of alternate designs is warranted.

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