Kinematics and Compliance of Sports Utility Vehicles

For concept and design of modern suspension systems many different demands have to be considered. Beside package and lightweight construction especially the real scopes of a suspension system, kinematics and compliance, are getting more and more important to fulfill all technical needs coming from the automotive market. In particular the development of suspension systems for Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) has to satisfy very high demands and strong characteristics criteria coming from the On-Road and Off-Road driving.

As many different load cases have to be taken into account, an analytic approach can only be used for first concept steps to design a SUV-suspension system. After that it is necessary to verify and tune all suspension and bushing characteristics by the use of multibody simulation tools like e. g. ADAMS. Therefore adequate models of all suspension components have to be available [6].

In this paper the main kinematics and compliance effects for an independent SUV suspension system will be explained and illustrated:

• ▪ Explanation of different load cases coming from the individual purposes of a Sports Utility Vehicle, Off-Road and On-Road
• ▪ Illustration of the K&C influences coming from the use of active systems to control roll and pitch angles or the individual wheel loads
• ▪ Development of an analytic approach to solve the kinematic and compliance needs.
• ▪ Simulation description and results to verify the suspension design
• ▪ Analysis of vibration problems resulting from current suspension system concepts