Effect of Tire Characteristics on the Simulation of Vehicle Straight Ahead Motion

In the dynamic simulation of vehicle straight ahead motion, the vehicle model usually drifts from its intended straight path. It is quite difficult to have a vehicle model run along the intended straight path unless a control algorithm is applied for this purpose. This is particularly true when a tire model based on experimental data is used. It is often assumed that this drift is due to errors accumulated during numerical integration. In this paper, effect of tire characteristics is studied on the dynamic simulation of vehicle straight ahead motion. One of the cars commercially available is selected for the study. A multibody dynamic simulation program, known as ADAMS(Automated Dynamic Analysis of Mechanical Systems), is used for modeling and simulation. The vehicle model used in this study has 137 degrees of freedom. The possible tire characteristics affecting vehicle straight ahead motion are identified from the simulation. And the comparison is given between simulation results and vehicle test results