Hjulupphängning till cykelvagn

Abstract

Together with the consulting company AFRY, a collaboration is being made with Thule. Thule has conducted a preliminary investigation into the current suspension design for the rear wheels of a bicycle trailer, called Chariot. The Chariot is available in single- and double seat models. It turned out that the current rear suspension on the Chariot does not provide the desired behavior when driving over obstacles. There is also a risk of overturning with the current design of the rear wheel suspension. AFRY has been asked to improve this suspension. As a basis for the project, there was a CAD model of what the intended new concept would look like on a double seat bicycle trailer and calculations have been initiated. AFRY's concept has an individual wheel suspension instead of the current rigid rear axle. Another big difference between Thule's trailer and the developed concept is that Thule's current trailer has a leaf spring and the developed concept has a coilover shock damper. This means that the damper and spring are combined in one unit. The project has mainly focused on improving, integrating and adapting AFRY's concept for Thule's Chariot trailer. A prototype has also been built to enable testing of the concept. The tests showed that the function of the concept worked as intended but the coilover shock used was not sufficient, since the damper was missing. At the end of the report, possible sources of error during the tests, as well as suggestions for improvements and potential further development of the concept are discussed.