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Abstract: The key goal of doctoral thesis was to conceive, design, optimize, and analyze the suspension and steering systems for a four wheel drive and four wheel steered terrain vehicle. The common characteristic of a terrain vehicle is the greater motion of the wheels in order to protect the vehicle from rollover risk when running over rough terrain. Known suspension and steering systems have serious weaknesses. In order to ensure good driving comfort, efficient driving safety, and higher maneuverability, new principles of suspension and steering systems are proposed. The proposed suspension system has been successfully derived from a classical double wishbone control arm. The control arms are long but both equal. Greater wheel motion has been ensured without reducing driving performance. In order to improve the comfort and safety an optimal active damping force has been determined by the active and semi-active systems. On the basis of comprehensive analysis, active system adequacy has been achieved. The proposed suspension design provides relatively small lateral wheel motion, zero camber angles, and it effectively absorbs the vibrations caused by ground configurations. The goal of the developed steering system for this terrain vehicle was to design a new steering mechanism that would provide maneuverability at low speed and suitable stability at higher speed. This has been ensured by two modes of steering, all wheel steer and front wheel steer. The proposed steering mechanisms conform to Ackermann steering geometry for all modes and situations. A totally new steering concept has been developed. This effective design consists of special pairs of gears, known as’ non-circular gears’.
Keywords: Terrain vehicle, suspension system, steering system, four wheels steering
Published in DKUM: 18.03.2013; Views: 4400; Downloads: 415
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