Abstract
A typical analysis process for an automotive suspension design has the following sequential workflow: 1) the design of the suspension joint location through Kinematic and Compliance (K&C) analysis using rigid multi-body simulation software and 2) the topology design of the suspension components based on the stress analysis using commercial finite element software. The first analysis is typically performed by a vehicle dynamics group or vehicle lay-out group. Once all the suspension joint points are determined, a second structural analysis is performed by a stress or durability group to ensure that the suspension components have enough stiffness and that the stress distribution isn’t susceptible to failure.
In this paper, the above automotive suspension analyses are integrated in the Isight platform for both suspension joint location optimization and topology optimization as a unified approach. Abaqus is used for both K&C analysis and stress analysis considering the loading from the tires. In order to create automotive suspension models easily, the authors have created an Abaqus/CAE plug-in with Python scripts. Abaqus/CAE is also used to set up the topology optimization which is then solved with Tosca Structure. Tosca is able to provide an optimal topology for the suspension links starting from simple rectangular beam shape models. The unified approach is applied to a rear multi-link suspension. In the optimization of the suspension joint locations, Toe and Camber are considered as objective functions and the joint point coordinates of the suspension links are set as design variables. The joint points of the links are optimized as the Toe and Camber behavior follows the target behavior through K&C analysis. Once the optimal suspension joint points are obtained, the topology optimization analysis is performed, starting from simple beam shapes with rectangular cross section profiles. The unified approach makes it easy to perform automated analyses systematically to optimize the design of the suspension joint locations as well as the topology of the suspension components.
KEYWORDS – Suspension, Topology, Optimization, Isight, Abaqus, Tosca