It is well known that the excessive levels of vibration in heavy vehicles negatively affect driver comfortability, cargo safety and road condition. The current challenge in the field of suspension design for heavy vehicles is to optimize the suspension dynamic parameters to improve such requirements.
Almost all of the previous work in this field is based on applying the mathematical optimization considering active or passive suspension systems to obtain the optimal dynamic parameters.
In this work a new passive suspension systems for heavy trucks is suggested and compared with the conventional passive suspension systems. The new systems rely on transferring the vertical motion, (vibration), into horizontal motion through a bell-crank mechanism to be taken by a horizontal passive suspension system. The system dynamic parameters like body acceleration, suspension travel and dynamic tire load are calculated assuming random excitation due to road irregularities.
The new suspension system is examined using single wheel station and tandem axle configurations.
Improvements in body acceleration, suspension working space and dynamic tire load have been achieved compared with the conventional passive systems. These improvements are qualitatively almost equal to the improvement that usually achieved by using active suspension system.
The new design is worth applying to cut the cost consumed in employing expensive active suspension systems.