Vehicle slalom passage analysis

Abstract

The paper is a continuation of the authors’ research dealing with a sensitivity study of the wheel camber variation of the experimental vehicle Alfa Romeo 156. A numerical comparison of the wheel camber change versus vertical axle position has already been performed and published for the vehicle in question. The same methodology was applied to four other selected axle types (for the purpose of comparison with each other), represented by vehicles in which these axles are actually implemented. As a result of the research, the values of the camber and the forces acting on the wheels during the simulated cornering of the vehicle were determined. Subsequently, the influence of the kinematic parameters on the dynamic response of the vehicle was evaluated. The current work of the authors focuses on experimental runs performed on the real vehicle (Alfa Romeo 156). Accordingly, the data from the experimental runs are compared with a numerical simulation of the passage of the modelled vehicle. The aim of this research is to evaluate the magnitude of body roll and body pitch for the vehicle slalom manoeuvre. The results indicate an excellent correlation between the numerical results and the measured values for this manoeuvre. On the basis of these results, it can be concluded that the numerical simulations are predictive, a finding that is crucial for developers pursuing equivalent kinematic parameters. In addition, the predictive nature of the simulation program allows to simulate diverse manoeuvres (e.g. vehicle braking) with variable input parameters, which would be problematic to implement in the case of experimental runs. Reducing the development time and tuning time of a prototype vehicle is one of the key factors to the competitiveness of companies.