Citation

Montazeri-Gh M, Jazayeri-M SY, Soleymani M. Int. J. Veh. Des. 2008; 47(1/2/3/4): 81-101.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Inderscience Publishers)

DOI

10.1504/IJVD.2008.020881

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Ride comfort simulation is conventionally based on a frequency-domain analysis in which vehicle speed is assumed constant. However, in real traffic condition, especially in the city traffic condition, vehicle speed varies frequently. These speed variations will influence frequency content of the road disturbance and may affect vehicle ride comfort. This paper describes a methodological approach for the vehicle ride evaluation based on a time-domain simulation taking the variable speed driving pattern into consideration. In this approach, the concept of the driving cycle is combined with the road surface irregularities in order to evaluate the vehicle ride comfort. The approach is applied to some standard driving patterns and the effect of the driving pattern on the ride index is studied. The results show the effectiveness of the approach for the evaluation of the vehicle ride comfort taking the variable speed driving pattern into account. In addition, analysis of the results reveals that the ride index value depends strongly on traffic condition characterised by the average speed and idle time.