Spring and Damper Tuning of an ATV to Reduce Transmissibility

The application in vehicle ride and handling has been mostly subjective or intuitive. There are several methods to improve vehicle stability and handling. One of the methods is suspension tuning. The objective of this work is to perform dynamical analysis of suspension by spring and damper tuning to reduce transmissibility for an all-terrain vehicle. A baseline spring rate data is used for tuning to provide better ride. The Fox air shock absorbers with progressive damping are used for testing. First the dynamics simulation is carried out by using ADAMS CAR tool. A detailed characteristic of the air shocks is obtained at various loading conditions by experimentation using test rig. Based on it, the simulation has been carried out for desired tuning parameters of spring and damper to improve stability. The speculated optimum setting is validated on an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) using ultrasonic sensors, by varying vehicle speed and bump heights to evaluate the transmissibility of the suspension. The acquired data shows behaviour of the suspension and the influence of the main parameters in the transmissibility. An estimate for optimal spring and damper tuning with suspension adjustment provides data which reduces transmissibility and improve vehicle stability.