• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.629-636
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• 2007

This paper describes the process of analyzing vehicle stiffness in terms of frequency band in order to improve vehicle handling. Vehicle handling and ride comfort are highly related to the systems such as suspension, seat, steering, and the car body design. In existing analytical processes, the resonance frequency of a car body is designed to be greater than 25 Hz in order to increase the stiffness of the body against idle vibration. This paper introduces a method for using a band with a frequency lower than 20 Hz to analyze how stiffness affects vehicle handling. Accordingly, static stiffness analysis of a 1g cornering force was conducted to minimize the deformation of vehicle components derived from a load on parts attached to the suspension. In addition, this technology is capable of achieving better performance than older technology. Analysis of how body attachment stiffness affects the dynamic stiffness of a bushing in the attachment parts of the suspension is expected to lead to improvements with respect to vehicle handling and road noise. The process of developing a car body with a high degree of stiffness, which was accomplished in the preliminary stage of this study, confirms the possibility of improving the stability performance and of designing a lightweight prototype car. These improvements can reduce the time needed to develop better vehicles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.163-166
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• 2003

Since the track pin is subjected to large transverse track tension from the track link, conventional track pins for high mobility vehicles are usually made of high strength steel, which increases the weight of tracked vehicles due to the high density of steel. In this paper, several composite materials were employed for track pin design to reduce weight of track pin as well as to enhance the fatigue life of rubber bushings. Especially the effects of shear stiffness of the composites on the life of rubber bushing were investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.464-466
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• 2014

The mechanism synthesis methods, graphical, analytical and computer-aided technique have been proposed for selecting and scaling mechanical system. According to developing computation tools, mechanism could be synthesized much faster and more correct than previous analytical ways by improved techniques. In this paper, the improved synthesis method is proposed to solve body guidance synthesis problem. To perform the mechanism synthesis for body guidance, a planar linkage is modeled as a set of free three bushings located in design space. The values of bushing stiffness and x, y position of bushings yielding a desired functional requirement related to input motion are found by using an optimization technique.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.4 s.109
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• pp.372-379
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• 2006

Little attention has been paid to static-strain-dependence of dynamic complex modulus of viscolelastic materials in computational analysisso far. Current commercial Finite Element Method (FEM) codes do not take such characteristics into consideration in constitutive equations of viscoelastic materials. Recent experimental observations that static-strain-dependence of dynamic complex modulus of viscolelastic materials, especially filled rubbers, are significant, however, require that solutions somehow are necessary. In this study, a simple technique of using a commercial FEM code, ABAQUS, is introduced, which seems to be far more cost/time saving than development of a new software with such capabilities. A static-strain-dependent correction factor is used to reflect the influence of static-strains in Merman model, which is currently the base of the ABAQUS. The proposed technique is applied to viscoelastic components of rather complicated shape to predict the dynamic stiffness under static-strain and the predictions are compared with experimental results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.465-472
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• 2008

An automotive windshield wiper system is modeled mainly for vibration analysis purpose. The model is composed of solid links, ideal joints, imperfect joints to simulate unavoidable manufacturing defects and bushings having stiffness, contact between a wiper blade and a wind screen glass, friction, a spring and an actuator. Main stream of wiper dynamics analysis has been obtaining a closed form of system of equations using Newton's or Lagrange's formula and doing a numerical simulation study to understand and predict the behavior of it. However, the modeling process is complex since a wiper system is of multibody and a contact problem occurs. When imperfection, such as dead zone of a joint and stiffness of a rubber bushing, should be included, the added complexity makes the modeling difficult. Since the imperfection is understood as main cause of problematic vibration, the dynamics model of a wiper system aiming vibration analysis should include such unavoidable manufacturing defects in the model. An open form of dynamic model of a automotive windshield wiper system with imperfect joints using a commercial software is obtained and a simulation analyssis is conducted for vibration reduction study.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.453-458
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• 2008

Under driving condition, A vehicle experiences various kinds of loads, which brings on the buckling and fracture of suspension systems. Lower control arm (LCA), which consists of 2 bush joints and 1 ball joint connection, is the one of the most important parts in the suspension system. The bush joints absorb the impact load and reduce the vibration from the road. When analyzing the LCA behavior, it is important to understand the material properties and boundary conditions of bushing systems correctly, because of the nonlinearity characteristics of the rubber. In this paper, in order to predict the large scale deformation of the LCA more precisely, three factors are newly suggested, that is, coupling of bush stiffness between translation and rotation, bush extraction force and maximum rotation angle of ball joint. LCA stiffness is estimated by CAE and component test. Analysis and test results are almost same and the validity of considering three factors in LCA analysis is verified.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.235-242
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• 2005

This study introduces the Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO) to enhance the kinematic and compliance (K & C) characteristics of automotive suspension system. In previous studies, the deterministic optimization has been performed to enhance the K & C characteristics. Unfortunately, uncertainties in the real world have not been considered in the deterministic optimization. In the design of suspension system, design variables with the uncertainties, such as the bushing stiffness, have a great influence on the variation of the suspension performances. There is a need to quantify these uncertainties and to apply the RBDO to obtain the design, satisfying the target reliability level. In this research, design variables including uncertainties are dealt as random variables and reliability of the suspension performances, which are related the K & C characteristics, are quantified and the RBDO is performed. The RBD-optimum is compared with the deterministic optimum to verify the enhancement in reliability. Thus, the reliability of the suspension performances is estimated and the RBD-optimum, satisfying the target reliability level, is determined.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.575-589
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• 2020

For vibration control of stay cables in cable-stayed bridges, viscous dampers are frequently used, and they are regularly installed between the cable and the bridge deck. In practice, neoprene rubber bushings (or of other types) are also widely installed inside the cable guide pipe, mainly for reducing the bending stresses of the cable near its anchorages. Therefore, it is important to understand the effect of the bushings on the performance of the external damper. Besides, for long cables, external dampers installed at a single position near a cable end can no longer provide enough damping due to the sag effect and the limited installation distance. It is thus of interest to improve cable damping by additionally installing dampers inside the guide pipe. This paper hence studies the combined effects of an external damper and an internal damper (which can also model the bushings) on a stay cable. The internal damper is assumed to be a High Damping Rubber (HDR) damper, and the external damper is considered to be a viscous damper with intrinsic stiffness, and the cable sag is also considered. Both the cases when the two dampers are installed close to one cable end and respectively close to the two cable ends are studied. Asymptotic design formulas are derived for both cases considering that the dampers are close to the cable ends. It is shown that when the two dampers are placed close to different cable ends, their combined damping effects are approximately the sum of their separate contributions, regardless of small cable sag and damper intrinsic stiffness. When the two dampers are installed close to the same end, maximum damping that can be achieved by the external damper is generally degraded, regardless of properties of the HDR damper. Field tests on an existing cable-stayed bridge have further validated the influence of the internal damper on the performance of the external damper. The results suggest that the HDR is optimally placed in the guide pipe of the cable-pylon anchorage when installing viscous dampers at one position is insufficient. When an HDR damper or the bushing has to be installed near the external damper, their combined damping effects need to be evaluated using the presented methods.