A Numerical Model to Analyze the Dynamic Response of a Vehicle to Variations in Torque Transmitted by the Drive-line

The dynamic transient response of a vehicle during rapid variations in driving torque is strongly influenced by the drive-line. An accurate numerical analysis to evaluate the vehicle performance in maneuvers which mainly interest longitudinal dynamics - such as rapid variations of the throttle or traction efforts - requires the development of a model able to simulate the dynamic behavior of the drive-line with good accuracy. This paper presents a full model of a front wheel-drive car. The model was developed by interfacing a multibody vehicle model in ADAMS code and a drive-line model in Simulink code. The output from the drive-line model, given by the driving torque applied to halfshafts, is passed as input to the multibody model. The calculated torque depends on the halfshafts kinematic parameters, which are the outputs of the multibody model. The results obtained from the simulation of several maneuvers of longitudinal dynamics are discussed.