A new chassis testing system equipped with flat belt roadways for both left and right vehicle wheels has been developed and put into operation. This system is designed to be capable of comprehensive performance evaluation of vehicle suspension and tires.Testing of suspension characteristics using actual vehicles requires many work-hours of testing on the proving ground in order to assure measurement accuracy and to reduce deviation from environmental factors. The use of the present system, however, enables enhanced development efficiency by replacing proving grounds test evaluations with testing of the system in a fixed environment and by shortening measurement time.This test system can be transformed into three measurement modes: the first mode can measure suspension characteristics of the front or rear wheels of a vehicle; the second mode can measure suspension assembly characteristics by testing just a suspension system with tires; and the third mode can measure the characteristics of tires alone.In actual vehicle testing, the vehicle behavior is measured under the influence of forces generated in both front and rear axles, which are dynamically coupled with each other through the vehicle’s motion. It becomes difficult, therefore, to separately analyze the influences of the front and rear axle tire forces on vehicle dynamics. The present test system can measure the component forces and moments of each tire of front or rear axles separately with a vehicle body constrained to the ground, and can provide analytical information to improve vehicle dynamics performance.
Article of Honda R&D Technical Review Vol.25 No.2 (66 - 72)