Simulation and experiments on three-wheeled vehicle on different tracks

Abstract

Three-wheeled vehicles are used both for public and private transport. A 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) mathematical model of a three wheeled vehicle is developed for predicting its ride behaviour. Simulations are carried out on this model and responses of the sprung and unsprung masses are found on different tracks like; i) Half circular bump; and ii) Trapezoidal. Sprung mass and unsprung mass accelerations are compared with experimental results and discrepancies between simulation and experiments are found. In order to bridge this gap, the paths traced by the tyre for the two different profiles are obtained as 2D layouts and differences between the analytical road input and the actual input traced by the tyre are found out. The simulated responses of the 6 DOF model are validated on the two different tracks using the paths traced by the tyres as input and good correlation is found between experimental results and simulations.