Component Load Predication from Wheel Force Transducer Measurements

The correlation of the component load time history with customer usage is becoming a most challenging task for vehicle durability performance development. Modern vehicle design process needs to obtain accurate component load as early as possible. Therefore, several load prediction methods based on vehicle multi-body dynamics model have been developed, such as fully-analytical method, semi-analytical method, etc. Component load prediction process using semi-analytical method is presented in this paper. An instrumented mule car with four wheel force transducers and several data acquisition channels is driven through the proving ground according to test procedure. The road load data obtained from the spindle is used as input signals for multi-body dynamics model which has been correlated with test. The relevant component loads are then obtained. The results in the vertical direction agree with the test data very well for the whole proving ground test procedure.