Abstract:

Excessive vibration in commercial vehicles due to excitation from road irregularities leads to ride discomfort and safety trouble. A threedimensional finite element model was built for the full vehicle to study the effect of frame stiffness on ride comfort of the commercial vehicle. The algorithms were given for the power spectrum density(PSD) and the rootmeansquare(RMS) of the accerleration response. The PSD and RMS of the vertical accerleration at the mid-point of cab floor for the two frames with different stiffness values under four excitations. The computed results show that when the frame stiffness increases, the RMS values of the cab vibration accerleration decreases significantly at the frequency band 14~26 Hz, and the driver ride comfort improves effectively.

Key words: vehicle engineering, finite element analysis, frame stiffness, ride comfort, commercial vehicle