Vehicle Handling – On Centre Handling of a Passenger Vehicle

 
  • An ‘on-centre’ handling problem was reported on a passenger vehicle. A design of experiments (DOE) analysis on an ADAMS model was proposed.

  • Prior to anycomputer simulation, tests on the vehicle were planned purely for model correlation.

  • The test handwheel angle and vehicle speed were used as input for the ADAMS model.

  • Test output data such as lateral acceleration, yaw velocity and roll angle was compared with that of the simulation results.

  • Once confidence in the ADAMS model was obtained, the DOE analysis was performed.

Vehicle Ride – Driveline Vibration Analysis

 
  • Driveline vibration problems were reported on a vehicle.

  • Hooke joint excitations from the driveline were exaggerated by the tolerances on propeller shaft manufacture, engine and differential installation position and mounting strategy.

  • An ADAMS model with driveline was built of the vehicle. The vehicle was powered via the crankshaft to enable the driveline excitations to be invoked.

  • Design of experiments was used to identify which of the effects was most significant with respect to the objective, namely the acceleration response at the driver seat rail.

Active Roll Control Design

 
  • An active roll control system was proposed on a passenger car.

  • Prior to production of a prototype, and an ADAMS model of the car with an active anti-roll bar was built. The hydraulic system was incorporated into the vehicle using ADAMS/Hydraulics.

  • The control strategy was modelled in MATLAB.

  • Using cosimulation, ADAMS and MATLAB were run simultaneously thus enabling investigation of the mechanism, hydraulics system and controls strategy within the same model.

Engine Idle Speed Control Design

 
  • A passenger car engine idle speed control system required improvement.

  • A series of engine tests were performed in order to obtain constants for a computer model.

  • Using the software package ACSL, a computer model of the engine was built.

  • The test parameters enabled the relationship between model inputs and outputs to be defined.

  • The idle speed control system was designed around the model using MATLAB.

  • Linear control design techniques were employed to optimise the controller.


Interface Development – ADAMS/Car

 
  • ADAMS/Car was sold to Toyota Motor Company in Japan.

  • Customer specific suspension and full vehicle analyses together with corresponding output were required.

  • The project was managed from the UK office of MDI (now MSc) and was staffed with fifteen engineers from MDI’s international pool of resource.

  • Neil McGowan spent one week in Japan interviewing Toyota chassis engineers in order to obtain their requirements for ADAMS/Car - Toyota.

  • An extensive proposal was prepared based on input from the interviews.

  • A custom version of ADAMS/Car was created in a six-month project.

  • A similar exercise was performed for Rover Cars.