System Dynamics and Ride Quality Assessment of Automobile

Ride quality analysis involves the study of three topics: ride excitation sources, system dynamics of a vehicle, human perception and tolerance of vibration. In this study, we establish an integration analysis procedure including the system dynamics analysis and the ride quality evaluation. The dynamic responseof a passenger car was simulated by a multi-body model with ADAMS software. The calculated acceleration responses of seats coincide with the field measured ones. The effect of damping ratio (C), stiffness coefficient (K), vehicle speed and seating location on the acceleration response are also investigated. The ride quality analysis was conducted following the ISO 2631 standard. A LabVIEW computer code was developed to provide fast and convenient assessment of the comfort. A 3-axis translational accelerometer was installed on the seat. The responses of a passenger car traveling on the long wave road, asphalt uneven road and stepped joint road of proving ground in ARTC (Automotive Research & Testing Center in Taiwan) were collected. A satisfactory agreement was observed between the comfort index obtained on the experimental data and dynamic simulation.