Investigation on the effects of stiffness and damping coefficients of the suspension system of a vehicle on the ride and handling performance

Ride and handling characteristics of vehicles are the most important issues in the vehicle dynamic behavior. Therefore, this study examines the simultaneous behavior of ride comfort and good handling of vehicle by presenting a model with nine degrees of freedom. A computer code has been developed and used to solve this model with different parameters for the suspension system of a vehicle. The results show the effects of damping and stiffness of the system on three rotational motions, roll, pitch, and yaw. It has been shown that in cornering, by increasing the stiffness and damping, roll and pitch are reduced, but when passing through external bump, roll and pitch are increased.