Title: An investigation on the ride comfort of a vehicle subjected to the random road excitation

Authors: Mousa Rezaee; Amin Taraghi Osguei; Hesam Addin Arghand

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract: In this paper, considering the random road excitation as the input, the Root Mean Square Acceleration Response (RMSAR) of the vehicle body and the driver seat has been derived to investigate the ride comfort. To this end, the DOF of the driver seat is added to the widely used 2-DOF half car model in which the actual vibration sensed by the driver can be investigated. Moreover, a realistic Power Spectral Density (PSD) function is proposed to formulate the actual random road excitation. Using the mentioned model and the proposed PSD function, the variation of the RMSAR of the vehicle body and the driver seat against the excitation frequency and the vehicle velocity are illustrated in appropriate diagrams. The results show that the RMSAR of the driver seat which is sensed directly by the driver, in general, is different from that of the vehicle body, and one can select appropriate values for the vibration parameters of the driver seat to enhance the ride comfort.

Keywords: ride comfort; random road excitation; road PSD; power spectral density; driver seat RMSAR; root mean square acceleration response; half car model; modelling; vehicle vibration; excitation frequency; vehicle velocity; vehicle speed.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVS.2013.055023

International Journal of Vehicle Safety, 2013 Vol.6 No.3, pp.235 - 253

Received: 17 Jul 2012
Accepted: 10 Oct 2012
Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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