Computational study on the effect of a conical spring on handling of buses at low speed

Abstract

Abstract. Handling and ride characteristic are dependent to a large extent on the characteristic of a vehicle's suspension system. This work explores the effect of the use of conical spring in place of conventional cylindrical profiled helical spring design in the handling of a bus at low speeds through full vehicle multi-body simulations. The bus was modelled using standard template available in ADAMS TM software package. The vehicle inertial properties were verified against properties in literature. The conventional spring characteristic (L) from ADAMS TM database was taken as reference and compared it with a non-linear characteristic (NL) based on literature data. The planned maneuover was to execute a right turn based on standard road dimension inputs from IRC 86:1983 at a constant speed of 30 km/hour with acceleration controlled by software module. Chassis displacements, displacements of spring were tracked to understand handling and ride quality. The variation of chassis displacements showed a significant improvement in ride characteristic of vehicle with most vibrations being damped in NL at time lower than the L characteristic suspension. All through the study, lateral acceleration was well within the rollover threshold and tire interaction forces did not exhibit any significant changes.