Aspects of Flexible Viscoelastic Suspension Modeling for Frictional Rolling Contact Analysis using ADAMS

Tire-wheel assembly is the only connection between road and vehicle. Contacting directly with road within postcard size of contact area, it is mounted and guided by the suspension system. Therefore kinematics and compliances of suspension system greatly influence the frictional coupling of tire tread elements and road surface asperities by affecting pressure and sliding velocity distribution in the contact zone. This study emphasizes the development of a numerical methodology for frictional rolling contact analysis with focus on interaction of suspension system dynamics and tire-road contact using ADAMS. For this purpose a comprehensive flexible multibody system of the multi-link rear suspension is established, where both flexible and rigid bodies are modeled to allow large displacements with included elastic effects. To meet accuracy requirements for the high frequency applications, such as road excitations, the amplitude- and frequency-dependency of rubber-metal bushings is included. Furthermore the proposed flexible viscoelastic suspension model is enhanced by a Flexible Ring Tire Model (FTire), which describes a 3D tire dynamic response and covers any road excitations by tread submodel connected to road surface model. Concerning the verification and validation procedure numerous experiments are carried out to confirm the validity and the accuracy of both the developed submodels and the entire model. The devised approach makes it possible to investigate the influence of suspension system design on dynamical rolling contact and to evaluate tire tread wear. Therefore it can be a useful tool to predict frictional power distribution within the contact area under more realistic conditions.