Design and Analysis of Suspension System for an FSAE car

Abstract

The paper mainly focuses on enhancing the vehicle's overall performance while satisfying all the prerequisites of a double-wishbone suspension system with either pull rod or pushrod is used in a race car due to ease of design and lighter components.  that deals with kinematic & compliance characteristics of the wheel suspension, including dynamic stability of the car. A suspension system performs the functions to maintain stability and balance during various conditions like pitching, rolling, yawing, squat, dive, to name a few, and to provide the vehicle with better control characteristics during acceleration, deceleration, and cornering.

This suspension model is simulated through the Parallel wheel and opposite wheel test and analyzed the half vehicle such that the gradient values are within the range. Later, to know the vehicle's dynamic characteristics, a complete vehicle analysis is done.

For designing the suspension models, assembly and component modeling CAD (SOLIDWORKS 2018) is used. In addition, ADAMS software has been selected for analysis for multi-body dynamics. For simulating various scenarios like Braking, constant radius cornering, drift, to name a few, a multi-body dynamic analysis is performed. In addition, the focus went on improving the suspension hardpoints so that they do not affect dynamically.

In the end, Ansys is used in analyzing the strength & life of components based on the loading characteristics of the vehicle.