Evaluating the effect of the working conditions on the ride comfort and road friendliness of the heavy truck

This study proposes a nonlinear dynamic model of the heavy trucks to evaluate the influence of the various working conditions on the ride comfort and road friendliness of the heavy vehicles based on Matlab/Simulink software. The weighted root mean square (RMS) acceleration responses of the vertical driver’s seat, the cab’s pitch and roll angles, and the dynamic load coefficient (DLC) are chosen as objective functions. The influence of the vehicle velocity and loads on the different road surfaces are evaluated based on the standard ISO 2631-1. The results show that the vehicle’s ride comfort is clearly affected on the road surfaces of ISO level C and D at the range of the vehicle velocity. Especially, the vehicle’s ride comfort is very poor at the velocity of 10-30 m.s-1 on ISO level D. The road friendliness of the vehicle is greatly decreased in the condition of the half-loaded vehicle. Particularly the vertical dynamic wheel loads at 2nd axle strongly affect the road damage at the velocity of 10-30 m.s-1