Flexible Model to Simulate Wheel Pass Over Singular Road Obstacles

ABSTRACT The paper presents a new approach regarding the study of the dynamics of the tire-suspension-vehicle system during wheel pass over short road obstacles. The proposed mathematical model suitable for the above study assumes the motor-vehicle to be a system composed of rigid bodies with multiple connections and utilizes matrix calculations. This allows the model to be extremely flexible and adaptable to changes to various concrete situations. In this paper the above model is applied by means of a computer program to simulate the car wheel pass over singular road obstacles. The simulation is based upon measurement data for the tire enveloping process found in the available literature which allow a black-box model for the tire in these circumstances. The remote target of the simulation is to try to improve vehicle road safety on uneven roads. Current studies are done in order to verify the suitability of the approach presented in this work to various practical situations.