Influence of Body Stiffness on Vehicle Dynamics Characteristics in Passenger Cars

Abstract

Automotive industry is a highly competitive market where details play a key role. Detecting, understanding and improving these details are needed steps in order to create sustainable cars capable of giving people a premium driving experience. Body stiffness is one of this important specifications of a passenger car which affects not only weight thus fuel consumption but also handling, steering and ride characteristics of the vehicle. By using a method developed to perform an extensive number of simulations and suitable for the analysis of the interesting points in the design space, it has been proved that not only torsional but lateral and local stiffness can play a role in giving the customer a premium feeling by affecting key metrics in the vehicle dynamics behavior of a passenger car. Furthermore it has been proved that the effect of the body in the vehicle dynamics of a car can be measured and targeted by using test maneuvers and metrics for handling and ride.