Investigation of the Vehicle Ride Vibration Effect on the Driveline Fluctuations

One of the main causes of the torsional and bending fluctuations of the driveline is the angularity of the driveshaft and its universal joints. Most of the previous studies of the driveline vibrations have considered constant and equal angularities of these joints. However, the exact equality of the angularity is very difficult to maintain for ground vehicles under different ride vibration modes. This paper is concerned with the coupling between the driveline fluctuations and the ride vibrations of the rear drive vehicles. The coupled motions, which are; drive axle suspension deformation and vehicle body pitch angle and their derivatives, have been used to study the driveshaft and output shaft bending and torsional fluctuations. The results have showed that the fluctuations of the driveshaft due to the base angularity of the joints are superimposed by another fluctuation due to the bounce and pitch of the vehicle body. Also, the results showed that the output shaft is torsionally fluctuated even for equality of the propeller shaft joints angles.