Durability Test Sequence and Target Generation for Variants among Commercial Vehicles

Based on customer application and loading condition, each Commercial Vehicle model has an entirely different usage pattern. To perform accurate durability validation, each vehicle model prototype should run on actual customer usage locations and loading conditions for the durability target kilometers. But it is time consuming and not practical. So a statistical approach is followed to generate the accelerated durability test sequence and target on in-house Proving Ground tracks to match the real customer usage for the durability target kilometers. Again a single durability test sequence and target cannot be followed for all vehicle models due to the variability in customer usage. For that, specific durability test sequence and target need to be established for every class of commercial vehicle.

This paper summarizes the methodology to develop Durability test sequence and target for commercial vehicle based on the work carried out on variants of medium and heavy duty trucks. The effect of variation in Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), wheelbase, wheel diameter and duty cycle on the durability test target has been studied.