Effect of the Change of Inertial, Elastic and Dissipative Parameters on the Ride Comfort of a Road Vehicle

The comfort on a vehicle is of great interest as it is related with the driver perception and hence with ride safety conditions. Road infrastructure in Colombia presents unique characteristics; for that reason, there is interest in how road vehicles can be adapted to perform properly when they are subjected to the road conditions of the country. This work is centred on the study of the effect that a change on a set composed by vehicle’s inertial, elastic and dissipative parameters has on the ride comfort of a driver. The ride comfort of the driver is analysed in terms of exposition to vibrations induced by the road unevenness to the vehicle body. A computational approach is implemented, by means of a previously validated multibody model with seven degrees of freedom (DOF). Two road input configurations are considered, both of them generated by isolated bumps. The effect that a variation on several vehicle parameters has on the driver comfort was analysed using comfort indexes defined by the standard ISO 2631-1.