Abstract
Keywords: driveline, simulation, heavy duty vehicle, model validation, driving comfort.
In addition to fuel consumption and efficiency the expectations in driving comfort of heavy duty vehicles were substantially increased in the last years. The driveline has an essential role in drivability performance of the vehicle. Since it determines the driving efficiency as well, simple, but robust devices were quite widespread in production, but these can usually make driving more difficult to the driver. This means there is a hard trade-off between efficiency and driving comfort. Application of control logics can help to find the balance between simplification of hardware components and their operation. Enhancing the drivability without any inefficient additional assembly leads to higher level of safety since it makes driver's job easier, and so it can further increase the efficiency of transportation.
This paper presents the development of a simulation model and the validation of a driveline model. The created simulation model makes possible to evaluate the driveline control elements considering the motions of vehicle body, which determines the driving comfort. The model includes an eight degree of freedom rotational torsional model for driveline simulation and the coupled suspended vehicle frame and the independent suspended driver's cabin on that. The front and rear axles are also taken into consideration with their unsprung masses. The two-track vehicle model can simulate the longitudinal, vertical, pitch and roll dynamic of vehicle body on different torque signals produced by the engine or appropriate road excitations. The complex nonlinear driveline and two-track vehicle model is validated with measurements recorded on real vehicle. The results show high matching level of the model to the measurement results. The above model can be applied effectively in driveline observer and control design process.