Two Wheeled Vehicle Ride Comfort Evaluation and Optimization Using Bump Test Rig in Virtual Simulation and Validation Through Actual Testing

Fierce competition in India's motorcycle industry has led to constant product innovation among manufacturers. This has resulted in the reduction of the lifecycle of the vehicle and has driven the manufacturers to alter the product design philosophies and design tools. One of the performance factors that have continued to challenge motorcycle designers is ride comfort in vertical and longitudinal direction. An essential tool in the motorcycle development process is the ability to quantify and grade the ride comfort behavior. This is performed either through subjective or objective tests. Subjective tests have the disadvantage that numerous factors influence test drivers' opinion while objective measures have the advantage of repeatability. However, objective methods provide only an approximate grading of vehicles and it is difficult to get consistent results that we can rely upon It is proposed that consistent result could be achieved if the motorcycle is run over the pave track in similar repeated cycles. But it is very difficult for the rider to evaluate the motorcycle for different speed over the pave track. So the development of motorcycle suspension has become a trial and error process.

The proposed work is to evaluate and optimize the ride comfort of the motorcycle using bump test rig and virtual simulation. By this method consistent results can be obtained to validate our vehicle. Comparison with various simulation confirms a good accuracy of the dynamic analysis to predict important phenomenon of suspension characteristics.