Numerical analysis of spring stiffness in vehicle design development stage

This paper reported the numerical analysis technique to investigate the influence of spring stiffness in automotive suspension towards improving the vehicle ride and performance. There are three type of spring’s stiffness categories which have been used to conduct the numerical analysis; soft, medium and hard. Using the full vehicle model and front suspension mathematical model, the study on rolling analysis for these three type of spring stiffness parameter towards the effect of the suspension total roll rate, tramp rate, roll centre height, roll centre lateral as the vehicle subjected to go through the longitudinal and cornering test. The results from the numerical simulation was then applied to the real vehicle model for field test. The outcome from the present work highlight the important of spring stiffness investigation during the vehicle design stage to improve the vehicle ride and performance.