CONTROL AND APPLICATION OF STEERING WHEEL NIBBLE AT HIGH SPEED CRUISING

The paper analyzes the mechanism of steering wheel nibble and its identification and control methods. A nibble analytical model combining multi-body dynamics simulation and road testing data is built for a passenger vehicle. The excitation sources and transfer paths for the steering wheel nibble are analyzed and corresponding optimized measures are proposed. The paper provides sensitivity analysis of the parameters influencing on the nibble in order to find the contribution of each parameter on the nibble. The simulation results show that the major influencing parameters are the front and rear bushing stiffness of the front control arm, and the rear bushing stiffness of the sub-frame. The paper also applies DOE (Design of Experiments) analysis to optimize these bushing stiffness and the steering wheel nibble is reduced by 52%. Due to combining road test data and multi-body dynamics simulation, the paper provides an effective approach to control the steering wheel nibble for the vehicle at high speed cruising. In vehicle development and engineering application, the approach is very practical and useful.