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Effects of Suspension Design Parameters of a Semi-trailer Truck on Vehicle

Ride Comfort and Road Surface Friendliness

Chapter · January 2020

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-37497-6_32

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Effects of Suspension Design Parameters of a Semi-trailer
Truck on Vehicle Ride Comfort and Road Surface
Friendliness
Le Van Quynh, Bui Van Cuong, Le Xuan Long and Do Van Quan
Faculty of Automotive and Power Machinery Engineering, ThaiNguyenUniversity of
Technology, Thai Nguyen, Vietnam
Email: lequynh@tnut.edu.vn

Abstract. The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of suspension design parameters
of a semi-trailer truck on vehicle ride comfort as well as road surface friendliness. A half-
dynamic vehicle model with 12 degrees of freedom is established under random road excitation.
The weighted root mean square (RMS) of acceleration responses of the vertical driver’s seat,
cab’s pitch and dynamic load coefficient (DLC) is chosen as objective function which uses
Matlab/Simulink software to simulate the vehicle dynamics model and calculate the objective
functions. The effects of suspension design parameters of a semi-trailer truck such as stiffness
and damping coefficients on the objective functions are analyzed respectively. The results show
that the effects of the stiffness and damping parameters in the suspension systems on the
vehicle ride comfort as well as road surface friendliness are very obvious. The worse the
vehicle ride comfort as well as road surface friendliness is, the greater the stiffness of the
suspension systems is. However, the vehicle ride comfort improves with the increase of the
damping of the suspension systems. Therefore, the study provides a theoretical basis for the
suspension system design of semi-trailer trucks.

Keywords: Semi-trailer trucks, suspension system, dynamic model, ride

comfort, road friendliness

1 Introduction
The suspension system is one of the most important systems to improve vehicle ride
comfort as well as reduce the negative impacts on the road surface. Therefore many scientists
are interested in researching and evaluating the impact. The effect on vehicle ride comfort
including the 3D dynamic model with 13-DOF(degree of freedom) is established for simulation,
and the weighted r.m.s acceleration responses of the vertical driver's seat, pitch and roll angle
of the cab are chosen as objective functions. The influence of the different vehicle dynamics
system parameters on the vertical vibration of driver's seat, pitch and roll of the cab which
include the stiffness and damping of vehicle suspension, tires, cab suspension and the driver's
seat suspension was analyzed by Le Van Quynh, et al[1]. A half rigid-elastic vibration model of
the vertical dynamic response with 6 degree of freedom (DOF) was developed by Jie L., et al[2]
to analyze vehicle ride. The analytical study of the performance indices of articulated truck
semi-trailer during three different cases to improve the driver comfort was presented by
Abdelkareem M A, et al[3]; For the effect on road surface friendliness, X M Shi and C S Cai
developed a 3D vehicle-pavement interaction model to analyse dynamic loads, and concluded
that pavement response is significantly higher in rough pavements under dynamic load
conditions than under static load conditions[4].The 3D nonlinear dynamic model of a typical
heavy truck was developed by Le Van Quynh, et al. [5]. The impact factors of dynamic tire
loads are used to evaluate the dynamic interaction between heavy vehicles and the study results
provide both the warning limits of road surface roughness and the limits of corresponding
dynamic parameters for the 5-axle heavy truck. Bui Van Cuong, et al[6] developed a three-
dimensional nonlinear dynamic model of heavy with 15 DOF (degree of freedom) based on
Zhou Changfeng model to evaluate influence of heavy truck operating condition on dynamic
load coefficient. Le Xuan Long, et al[7] developed a full dynamic model of a heavy vehicle
equipped with three different suspension systems to evaluate the effect of suspension
characteristics on dynamic load coefficient (DLC). Le Van Quynh, et al[8] developed a 3D
dynamic model with 14 degrees of freedom with the dynamic models of the traditional and new
air suspension systems to compare the performance of the air suspension systems for reducing
the negative impacts on the road surface when vehicle moves on the different road conditions.
The geometric structural parameters of the vehicle system and the nonlinear characteristics of
shock absorber and leaf springs were precisely described by Yongjie Lu, et al [9] to analyze the
effects on tire dynamic load and dynamic load coefficient (DLC). The effects of driving
conditions and suspension parameters on dynamic load-sharing and road-friendliness of the
semi-trailer were analyzed by YiKai Chen[10]. Le Van Quynh, et al[11] developed a three-
dimensional vehicle-pavement coupled model with 14 degrees of freedom to analyze the
influence of semi-trailer truck operating conditions on road surface; For improving both vehicle
ride comfort and road friendliness, a three-dimensional nonlinear dynamical model of a typical
heavy truck with 16-DOF was established by Nguyen Van Liem, et al [12] to analyze and
evaluate the performance of the air suspension system of heavy trucks with semi-active fuzzy
control. A half-vehicle dynamic model with three control cases including the seat controlled,
the cab controlled, and the vehicle controlled was respectively established by Van Liem
Nguyen, et al [13] to evaluate the performance of heavy truck’s semi-active isolation systems.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows: a dynamic model for a half semi-trailer
truck with 12 d.o.f established under the random road excitation according to the International
Standards Organization (ISO) 8608 [15] is presented in section 2. In section 3, Evaluation
indicators such as the weighted root mean square (RMS) of acceleration responses of the
vertical driver’s seat, cab’s pitch and dynamic load coefficient (DLC) are proposed. Section 4
presents the results, and the discussion and the conclusions are given in section 5.

2 Vehicle dynamic model

2.1 Full vehicle dynamic model

A 5- axle semi-trailer truck with dependent leaf spring suspension systems for all axles of
vehicle is selected for analyzing the influence of tire parameters of vehicle on road surface
friendliness. A half semi-trailer truck dynamic model with 12 degrees of freedom is presented
by the reference [16], as shown in Fig-1.

In Fig-1, kti and cti are the stiffness and damping coefficients of the tires, respectively; k i and ci
are the stiffness and damping coefficients of the passive suspension systems of vehicle,
respectively; kc1, kc2, ks and cc1, cc2, cs are the passive suspension systems of cab and driver
seat respectively; mi are the unsprung mass of the tractor and trailer axles, respectively; mff and
mfr are the sprung mass of the tractor and trailer bodies, respectively; mc and ms are the mass of
the cab body and the driver seat; Iff, Ifr and Ic are the mass moment of inertia of tractor, trailer
and cab; zi, zff, zfr, zc và zs are the vertical displacements of the axles, tractor body, trailer body,
cab and driver seat, respectively; c, ff and fr are the pitch angle displacements of the cab,
tractor and trailer bodies, respectively; l j are the distances; v is the speed of vehicle (i=1÷5;
j=1÷10).
l 10 l9 l8
l7
v zc
zs l6 l5 l4
ms c
mc zfr
cs ks fr
zff cc2
cc1 kc1 kc2 mfr Ifr
ff ck kk
mff Iff
c4 k4 c5 k5
c1 k1 c2 k2 c3 k3
z1 z2 z3 z4 z5
m1 m2 m3 m4 m5
ct1 kt1 ct2 kt2 ct3 kt3 ct4 kt4 ct5 kt5
ql l1 l2 q2 q3 q4 q5
l3

Fig.1. Articulated truck semi-trailer dynamic model

Equations of motion: The equations of vehicle motion can be formulated in different ways such
as Lagrange’s equation, Newton-Euler equation, Jourdain’s principle. However, in order to
facilitate the description of vehicle dynamic systems using computer simulation, a combined
method of the multi-body system theory and D'Alembert's principle is chosen for this study.
The multi-body system theory is used to separate the system into subsystems which are linked
by the force and moment equations. D'Alembert's principle is used to set up force and moment
equations to describe vehicle dynamic subsystems. The general dynamic differential equation
for the articulated truck semi-trailer is given by the following matrix form:

Mz  Cz  Kz  Ct q  Kt q (1)

in which M is the mass matrix; C is the damping matrix of the suspension system; K is the
stiffness matrix of the suspension system; Ct is the damping matrix of the wheel system; Kt is
the stiffness matrix of the wheel system; z is the vector of displacement; q is the vector of
excitation of road surface.

2.2. Road surface roughness

Road surface roughness plays an important role in analyzing driver ride comfort. The random
excitation of road surface roughness can be represented with a periodic modulated random
process. The general form of the displacement PSD of the road surface roughness is determined
by the experimental formula [6, 14 ]:

n
S q n   S q n0   (2)
 n0 

Space frequency n is the reciprocal of the wavelength λ - wave numbers in a meter. n0 is

reference space frequency defined as 0.1m-1. Sq(n) is PSD of road surface under the reference
space frequency Sq(n0) known as the road surface roughness coefficient and  is the frequency
index which decides the frequency configuration of PSD of road surface (  2) .

The road surface roughness is assumed to be a zero-mean stationary Gaussian random process.
It can be generated through an inverse Fourier transformation:
N
qt    2S q ni n cos2nk t  i  (3)
i 1

 i is random phase uniformly distributed from 0 to 2.

In this study, typical road surface roughness is adopted according to the standard ISO 8068[15]
and computer simulation result of the typical road surface roughness ISO 8068 class B is shown
in Fig.2.
0.01
qt1 qt4

0.005
qt/m

-0.005

-0.01
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time/s
Fig. 2. Typical road surface roughness according to the standard ISO 8068 class B

3. Evaluation indicators

3.1. Vehicle ride comfort

Currently there are many methods to evaluate the vehicle ride comfort such as frequency-
domain method, time-domain method, etc. This study is based on ISO 2631-1 (1997), vibration
evaluation based on the basic evaluation method including measurements of the weighted root-
mean-square (rms) acceleration is defined by:

1 T 2 
1/ 2 (4)
aw    aw (t )dt 
T 0 

where aw(t) is the weighted acceleration (translational and rotational) as a function of time, m/s 2;
T is the duration of the measurements.

In this way, for indications of likely reactions to various magnitudes of overall vibration in the
public transport a synthetic index-called the weighted RMS acceleration, aw can be calculated
from formula Eq.(4) and the RMS value of the vertical acceleration in vehicle would be
compared with the values in Tab 1,.
 Table1. Comfort levels related to aw threshold values
-2
aw/(m.s ) Comfort level aw/(m.s-2) Comfort level
< 0.315 Not uncomfortable 0.8 ÷ 1.6 Uncomfortable
0.315÷0.63 A little uncomfortable 1.25 ÷ 2.5 Very uncomfortable
0.5 ÷ 1.0 Fairly uncomfortable >2 Extremely uncomfortable

3.2. Dynamic tire load

Dynamic tire load would lead to stress and strain of road surface. The long-term accumulation
of road surface plastic deformation causes the destruction of roads, such as cracks and rutting.
In this paper, in order to analyze the effects of suspension design parameters of a semi-trailer
truck on road surface friendliness, the dynamic load coefficient (DLC) is chosen as objective
function which is defined by a ratio of the root mean square of the vertical dynamic tire force
over static load [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [11] as follows:
F (5)
DLC  t ,rms
Fs
Ft,rms and Fs are the root mean square of the vertical dynamic and the static tire force. The
value of the DLC is in range of 0.05 to 0.3 under normal operating conditions. It may reach
zero when the wheels move on a special smooth road or increase up to 0.4 when the tires of
the axles spend a significant proportion of their time disconnecting the road surface [18].

4. SIMULATION AND DISCUSSION

In order to solve the general dynamic differential equation for a semi-trailer truck presented
in section 2.1, Matlab/Simulink software is used with a set of parameters of the articulated
truck semi-trailer by the references [16], [17]. The simulation results of the acceleration
responses of the vertical driver's seat, cab’s pitch and the vertical dynamic tire loads acting on
road surface at 3rd and 5th axles when vehicle moves on the ISO class B road surface at v=20
m/s with fully loaded are shown in Fig.3.

Fig.3 could determine the values of the weighted root mean square (RMS) of acceleration
responses of the vertical driver’s seat, cab’s pitch and dynamic load coefficients (DLC) at 3rd
and 5th axles, the response values such as aws=0.2456m/s2, awcphi=0.0444 rad/s2 and
DLCt3=0.0272; DLCt5= 0.0438. The values are satisfied in the allowed range (in section 3) for
vehicle ride comfort as well as road surface friendliness. The effects of suspension design
parameters of a semi-trailer truck such as stiffness and damping coefficients on aws, awcphi and
DLCt4 values are being presented in the following in sections.

4.1 Effect of stiffness coefficients

Stiffness of vehicle suspension system is responsible for reducing the vibrations transmitted
from the road surface into the chassis as well as reduce the dynamic
force, vibrations, transmitted from the engine to the road surface. To analyze the effect of
stiffness coefficients of vehicle suspension systems on aws, awcphi and DLCt4 values, the values
of the stiffness coefficients of vehicle suspension systems k=[0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6,
1.8, 2.0] xk0 where k0=[k1, k2, k3, k4, k5]T are analyzed when vehicle moves the ISO class B
road surface at v=20 m/s and full load, where k0 is used to designate the stiffness coefficients of
vehicle suspension systems in the reference document[17]. Results of the analysis of the effect
of stiffness coefficients of vehicle suspension systems on aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle values
are shown Fig.4.
1 0.4

acphi/(rad.s )
0.2

-2
0.5
as/(m.s )
-2

0 0

-0.2
-0.5
-0.4
-1 0 10 20 30
0 10 20 30 Time/s
Time/s
(a) Acceleration responses of the vertical (b) Acceleration responses of cab’s pitch
driver's seat
4 4
1 x 10 1 x 10
Ft5/N
Ft3/N

0
0

-1
-1 0 10 20 30
0 10 20 30 Time/s
Time/s
(c) The vertical dynamic tire forces at 3rd (d) The vertical dynamic tire forces at 5th
wheel axle acting on road surface wheel axle acting on road surface

Fig.3. Acceleration responses of the vertical driver's seat, cab’s pitch and the vertical dynamic
tire loads acting on road surface at 3rd and 5th axles

0.35 0.07 0.06

aws
0.3 0.06 0.055
awcphi
awcphi/(rad.s-2)

0.05
aws/(m.s-2)

0.25 DLCt4 0.05

DLCt4

0.045
0.2 0.04
0.04
0.15 0.03 0.035

0.1 0.02 0.03

0.5 1 1.5 2 xk
-1 0
k/(N.m )

Fig.4. Effect of stiffness coefficients of vehicle suspension systems on aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at
4th axle values
 From the results in Fig.2, it is shown that the values of the stiffness coefficients of vehicle
suspension systems increase, the values of aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle increase that means
driver’s ride comfort as well as road surface friendliness are becoming worse and worse. As the
values of the stiffness coefficients of vehicle suspension systems increase from 0.8k0 to 2k0, the
values of aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle increase from 5.1 to 8.1%, 11.0 to 39.4% and 5.9 to
14.3% compared with the suspension stiffness values of the original vehicle.

4.2 Effect of damping coefficients

Damping coefficient in vehicle suspension takes responsibility to reduce vibration

amplitude transmitted to the vehicle as well as to improve vehicle ride comfort and road surface
friendliness. To analyze the effect of damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems on aws,
awcphi and DLCt4 values, the values of the damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems
c=[0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0] xc0 where c0=[c1, c2, c3, c4, c5]T is analyzed
when vehicle moves the ISO class B road surface at v=20 m/s and full load, where c0 is used to
designate the damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems in the reference
document[17]. Results of the analysis of the effect of damping coefficients of vehicle
suspension systems on aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle values are shown Fig.5.

0.3 0.056
0.29 aws 0.054
0.28 awcphi 0.052
awcphi/(rad.s-2)

0.055
aws/(m.s-2)

0.27 0.05
DLCt4
0.26 0.048 DLCt4
0.25 0.046
0.24 0.044 0.05

0.23 0.042
0.22 0.04
0.5 1 1.5 2 xc0
-1
c/N.s.m

Fig.5. Effect of damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems on aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at
4th axle values

Fig.6 shows that the values of the damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems
increase, the values of aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle decrease that means the vehicle ride
comfort as well as road surface friendliness is improved until the values are c>2.0c0. As the
values are c2.0c0, the values of aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle increase the most quickly in
the direction of the un–comfort driver and un-friendly road surface. As the values of the
damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems decrease from 0.2c0 to 2c0, the values of
aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle increase from 11.4 to 9.5%, 13.7 to 8.3% and 11.3 to 2.9 %
compared with the suspension damping values of the original vehicle.
5 Conclusions

In this study, a half-vehicle dynamic model of a semi-trailer truck is established for

analyzing the effects of suspension design parameters of a semi-trailer truck on vehicle ride
comfort as well as road surface friendliness when vehicle moves on the ISO class B road
surface at v=20 m/s and full load. The major conclusions that can be drawn from the analysis
results as follows:

1) The greater the values of the stiffness coefficients of vehicle suspension systems become,
the greater the values of aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle are, which means both driver’s ride
comfort and road surface friendliness are getting worse and worse.

2) The values of the damping coefficients of vehicle suspension systems increase whereas
the values of aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle decrease, which means not only the vehicle ride
comfort but also the road surface friendliness improve until the values are c>2.0c0 . The values
decrease from 0.2c0 to 2c0, aws, awcphi and DLCt4 at 4th axle increase from 11.4 to 9.5%, 13.7 to
8.3% and 11.3 to 2.9 % compared with the suspension damping values of the original vehicle.

3) The study results are the theoretical basis for the researcher group to continue studying
the optimal design parameters of vehicle suspension system with a view to improving road
surface friendliness, vehicle ride comfort as well as reducing vehicle noise.

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