Vehicle dynamic behaviours crossing cat-eye reflectors

Abstract

Cat-eye reflectors are used in the last few years to calm down with the demand of road flow especially local and domestic roads. However, it is normally distributed transversally to vehicle direction of motion. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of cat-eye reflector configuration on the vehicle dynamic behaviour. This study is based on a quarter car model of four wheels independent suspension system. Vehicle vertical body acceleration, tyre dynamic load and suspension working space are calculated while the vehicle is crossing cat-eye reflectors at different speeds. Also, the case of common circular hump is investigated and compared with cat eye hump. The results indicate that the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle crossing cat-eye hump is contrary to what should be the hump design considerations. As the vehicle crossing cat-eye hump, vehicle vertical acceleration has higher values at low vehicle speed and with the increase of vehicle speed, the vehicle vertical acceleration devolves to lower values. On the contrary, using common circular hump has reasonable ride comfort at low vehicle speeds; when the vehicle speed increases the ride comfort becomes worse.