Automated Vehicle Dynamic Analysis With Flexible Components

A method is presented for nonlinear, transient dynamic analysis of vehicle systems that are composed of interconnected rigid and flexible bodies. The finite element method is used to characterize deformation of each elastic body and a component mode technique is employed to reduce the number of elastic generalized coordinates. Equations of motion and constraints of the coupled system are formulated in terms of a minimal set of modal and reference generalized coordinates. A Lagrange multiplier technique is used to account for kinematic constraints between bodies and a generalized coordinate partitioning technique is employed to eliminate dependent coordinates. The method is applied to a planar truck model with a flexible chassis and nonlinear suspension components. Simulation results for transient dynamic response as the vehicle traverses a bump, including the effect of bump-stops, and random terrain show that flexibility of the chassis can be routinely accounted for and predicts significant effects on vibratory motion of the vehicle. Compared with a rigid body model, flexibility of the chassis increases peak acceleration of the chassis and induces high-frequency vertical acceleration in the range of human resonance, measured in this paper as driver absorbed power, which deteriorates ride quality of off-road vehicles.