Influence of Active Suspension Components on Durability

Active suspension components have an effect on fatigue life of attached parts. This effect can be both positive or negative for the complete suspension system.

Traditionally fatigue analyses at chassis were carried out on component level. Measured wheel force transducer loads from the test track were broken down to component section loads using an MBS software. In a second step these loads were used to drive a linear static fatigue analysis to determine the durability of different suspension parts.

This article shows a new method for dynamic durability analysis on system or even vehicle level. How to take into account active suspension components by means of cosimulation between the MBS and controller software is demonstrated for two examples, an Active Roll-Control system (ARC) and by actively influencing the vertical loadpath in a rear suspension.