Design for Improvement in Steering Vibration Performance in a Passenger Vehicle

In urban driving conditions, the steering vibration plays a major role for a customer, spending a significant amount of time behind the steering wheel. Considering the urban drive at Indian roads, 1000~1600rpm band becomes primary area of concern. In this paper, study has been conducted to define the target areas as well as its achievement in reference to given driving pattern on a front wheel powered passenger car for steering vibration. During the concept stage of vehicle development, a target characteristic of steering wheel vibration was defined based on the competitor model benchmarking and prior development experience. A correlated CAE model was prepared to evaluate the modification prior to prototype building and verification. Vibration level in all 3 degrees of freedom at the steering wheel location was measured in the initial vehicle prototypes and target areas of improvement are identified. Considering above study on subject vehicle, improvement ideas are implemented in the new model for suspension design and modification over existing design were taken to compensate the vibration. The study of different transfer paths of steering vibration in a passenger vehicle and the design changes were effective in improving the steering wheel vibration performance.