Investigating the effect of augmenting the anti-roll-bar with a torsional-dynamic-absorber on the handling-stability and the ride-comfort of the off-road-vehicles

Enhancing the handling and ride comfort is the main objective in the off-road vehicles. Ride dynamics studies. To augment the control authority on the handling and the ride comfort for such vehicles, a soft suspension system should exist. The main drawback of the soft suspension is the high probability of rolling-over especially in sudden maneuver cases. Anti-roll bar is a classical mechanical linkage that has been used to increase the rolling stiffness without affecting the vertical stiffness of the vehicle. The main drawback of the antiroll bar is the increase of the load transfer between the vehicle sides and increases the rolling acceleration, which negatively affects the ride comfort. In the current study, we investigate the effect of adding torsional dynamic absorber beside the antiroll bar on improving the handling and the ride comfort of the vehicle. More over the structural integrity of this kind of vehicles is expected to be maintained for longer service life compared with the same vehicles without the torsional dynamic absorber. A model of 4 DOF vibrating system that represent the suspension system of the half rear of the off-road vehicle is adopted and the mathematical model is derived. The frequency responses of the model were studied statistically as well as the time domain response. The results reveal that, to a large extent, the augmented antiroll suspension system succeeded to damp the system quickly and reducing all vibration frequency levels. The simulation results show that the vehicle rolling settling time has been reduced by 30% approximately. Also the rolling acceleration mean value among the resonance band in the frequency response curve was reduced by 60%.