KB7043: The suspension system can improve the ride comfort, handling, and stability of a vehicle by isolating the vehicle body: Multidisciplinary Design & Engineering Optimisation CourseWork, NUN, UK

Learning Outcomes

1. A systematic understanding of knowledge which is at the forefront of modern engineering design and optimization
2. Knowledge of conducting essential calculations for a reliability driven design and design under uncertainties Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
3. Ability to plan design optimization processes for complex engineering problems and formulate their corresponding optimization problem and identify the best applicable search method
4. The skill of using optimization methods to find the optimum solution for a given optimization problem and develop critiques of the methods and the optimality of the solution Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
5. Increase proficiency in applying new design and optimization techniques towards designing products and processes with improved performance and less environmental impact.

Overview

The suspension system can improve the ride comfort, handling, and stability of a vehicle by isolating the vehicle body from perturbations introduced by the road as shown in Figure 1 below. The suspension system and vehicle can be simply modeled by a quarter-vehicle model as shown.

Design an optimized suspension system that can produce the best ride comfort. Make use of MATLAB optimization routines (genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, or particle swarm) to conduct the study. Investigate the effect of uncertainty in the design parameters on the performance of the suspension system.

Each student will have a unique set of data provided to them by the module tutor. This unique data set includes:

• the mass of the wheel and tire
• the road perturbation profile
• the speed of the vehicle
• the mass of the car body
• the ranges of tire stiffness, suspension stiffness, and damping