Finite Element Analysis of Double Wishbone Vehicle Suspension System

Abstract

Suspension systems play an important role in vehicles. These systems provide passenger comfort and vibration isolation from road bumps. Thus an efficient finite element model is required to study and analyze the dynamic response of these suspension systems. This paper presents a finite element model to analyze the dynamic response of double wishbone vehicle suspension system taking into consideration both links and joints flexibilities. Links are modeled using plane frame element based on Timoshenko beam theory (TBT) kinematic relations. On the other hand, the revolute joint element, developed in ANSYS, is adopted to model joints flexibility.Both internal viscoelastic and external viscous as well as the modal proportional damping models are adopted to simulate the damping effect. The resulting dynamic finite element equations of motion are solved using Newmark numerical technique. The proposed numerical methodology is checked by comparing the obtained results with the developed analytical solution and good agreement is noticed. The applicability of the proposed procedure is demonstrated by operating parametric studies to illustrate the effects of the road irregularity configurations, the vehicle travelling velocity, as well as the material damping on the dynamic response characteristics of the double wishbone suspension system. The obtained results are helpful for the mechanical design of these structural systems.