Digital simulation of road-vehicle systems

This paper investigates dynamics of road-vehicle systems via stochastic numerics, applying discrete integration schemes of first and second order. The ride on rough roads generates vertical car vibrations whose root mean squares become resonant for critical speeds. The investigations are extended to nonlinear wheel suspensions with cubic-progressive springs. For weak but still positive damping, the car vibrations become unstable in overcritical speed ranges detected by means of perturbation equations whose top Lyapunov exponent can become positive in the case of parameter resonances. This indicates that the stationary car vibrations bifurcate into stochastic chaos. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.