Investigation on ride comfort Behavior adopting driver and Passenger biomechanics in active Suspension system

Abstract

The automotive suspension system was primarily used to enhance the vehicle ride comfort. Additionally, it was also used to provide guaranteed suspension working space, good vehicle handling and constant tire-ground contact. However, these suspension performance indices were studied using different mathematical models. In the quarter-car model, ride comfort in terms of the vehicle body (sprung mass) vertical acceleration was analyzed along with suspension working space and road-holding characteristics. In the half-car and full-car models, in addition to the above, suspension performance index, vehicle handling behavior was also studied. The ride comfort of the vehicle was traditionally evaluated by preferring distinct vehicle body accelerations like vertical, pitching, and rolling. Among all, vehicle body vertical acceleration due to road undulations affects significantly. The seated occupant gets vibration through the vehicle body acceleration, thus the ride comfort index has been given special attention over other suspension functions. In ISO 2631-1:1997, it is highlighted that seated occupants exposed under continuous vibration may feel the discomfort and their health may get rigorously affected. Hence, the addition of seated occupant biomechanics on the vehicle model is unavoidable to evaluate the suspension ride comfort performance more efficiently. In this work, along with the vehicle body vertical and pitching accelerations, the ride comfort measure was included with driver and passenger head accelerations. Eventually, the severity among the driver and passenger exposed under vertical vibration was studied. newline