Vehicle model for tyre-ground

contact force evaluation

Lejia Jiao

Master Thesis in Vehicle Engineering

Department of Aeronautical and Vehicle Engineering

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

TRITA-AVE 2013:40
ISSN 1651-7660

Postal address
KTH
Vehicle Dynamics
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Visiting Address
Teknikringen 8
Stockholm

Telephone
+46 8 790 6000

Telefax
+46 8 790 6500

Internet
www.kth.se

Acknowledgment
I owe gratitude to many people for supporting me during my thesis work. Especially, I would
like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Associate professor Jenny Jerrelind,
for her enthusiasm and infinite passion for this project. Without her patient guidance and
persistent help, this thesis would not have been possible.
I am particularly indebted to my parents for inspiring me to this work.
I would like to thank Associate professor Lars Drugge, who introduced me to vehicle-road
interaction and gave me enlightening instruction.
In addition, I would like to give my sincere thanks to Nicole Kringos and Parisa Khavassefat,
for helping me to understand the pavement and sharing model and data with me; to Ines
Lopez Arteaga, for giving me feedbacks from tyre experts point of view. The great
interdisciplinary cooperation and teamwork helped me to have a good understanding of the
whole vehicle-tyre-pavement system, and get rational tyre and pavement parts included in my
models.
Last but not least, I would like to thank all my friends, for their understanding,
encouragement and support.
Stockholm June 26, 2013
Lejia Jiao

ii

Abstract
Economic development and growing integration process of world trade increases the
demand for road transport. In 2008, the freight transportation by road in Sweden reached 42
million tonne-kilometers. Sweden has a tradition of long and heavy trucks combinations.
Lots of larger vehicles, with a maximum length of 25.25 meters and weight of 60 tonnes, are
used in national traffic. Heavier road transport and widely use of large vehicles contribute to
the damages of pavement. According to a recent research by the VTI, total cost of road wear
by freight transport in Sweden in 2005 was about 676 million SEK. If the weights of all
vehicles were limited to 40 tonnes, according to the new EU rules, the cost of wear in 2005
would have been 140 million SEK less.
Lots of studies about road damage caused by vehicle have been done since the last decades.
It has been found that the dynamic tyre force plays an important role in the damages of
pavement. However, the influence of vehicle-pavement interaction on pavement damage has
not been investigated to any large extent yet. The aim of this study is to provide suitable
computational truck models, study the influence of vehicle-pavement interaction and
parameters of vehicle on pavement damage.
To fulfil the aims, this study presents vehicle models, including quarter, half, full vehicle
models and quarter vehicle model coupled with pavement, used to compute the dynamic tyre
force. The different models are then compared. Two actual road profiles measured by laser, a
smooth one and an uneven one, are used for evaluation. The models are analysed to find out
the vehicle parameters that influence the road damage most and to learn about how detailed
models are needed.
Its found that difference does exist between more detailed models and less detailed ones,
and its non-negligible. It will increase with the increase of road unevenness. The dynamic
tyre force will not be affected much by coupling the pavement, unless the road surface is very
uneven or wheel hop exists. On uneven roads, energy mainly dissipates in vehicle suspension.
However, on even roads, vibration can be well damped in tyre before it reaches suspension,
so most of energy dissipates in tyre. Different components influence the tyre force differently.
The influence varies with different frequency range of input signal (road profile) as well. The
effects of sprung parts are mainly in low frequency range, while the effects of unsprung parts
are mainly in high frequency range. Parameters of vehicle body influence the dynamic tyre
force most. The effect of cabin is much smaller compared to vehicle body and unsprung part.
Changes in parameters of pavement will not influence the road load, but its resonant
frequency. Therefore, the best way to reduce dynamic tyre load is to design a more
lightweight vehicle body, softer and better damped suspension.
iii

iv

Contents
1

Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1
1.1

Background ............................................................................................................................. 1

1.2

Problem description ............................................................................................................... 1

1.3

Aim ........................................................................................................................................... 3

Methodology ........................................................................................................... 4

Vehicle models ........................................................................................................ 5

3.1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5

3.2

Model establishment .............................................................................................................. 6

3.2.1

Quarter vehicle model .................................................................................................... 6

3.2.2

Quarter vehicle model coupled with pavement ......................................................... 8

3.2.3

Half vehicle model ........................................................................................................ 10

3.2.4

Full vehicle model ......................................................................................................... 13

Model comparison.................................................................................................. 16
4.1

Parameters used in simulation ............................................................................................ 16

4.1.1

Vehicle parameters........................................................................................................ 16

4.1.2

Pavement parameters ................................................................................................... 17

4.2

Quarter, half and full vehicle .............................................................................................. 18

4.3

Influence of coupled pavement ......................................................................................... 24

4.4

Energy dissipation ................................................................................................................ 27

Parametric study .................................................................................................... 29

5.1

Typical response and frequency distribution ................................................................... 29

5.2

Effect of mass ....................................................................................................................... 32

5.3

Effect of stiffness ................................................................................................................. 35

5.4

Effect of damping ................................................................................................................ 38

Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 41

Future work ............................................................................................................ 44

References .............................................................................................................. 45

vi

1 Introduction
This chapter gives a brief review of history and background, a short introduction to the subject and the
goals of this study.

1.1

Background

With the growing and deepening of the integration process of world trade, the demand for
freight transport, especially by road, continues to increase. According to the Swedish Road
Administration, the freight transport by road is continuously increasing, and arrived around
45 billion tonne-kilometres in 2008, which has exceeded train and marine transport [1].
Sweden has a tradition of long and heavy trucks combinations. Lots of larger vehicles, with a
maximum length of 25.25 metres and weight of 60 tonnes, are used in national traffic [2].
Heavier road transport and widely use of larger vehicles will contribute to the damages of
pavement, such a fatigue cracking, permanent deformation etc. The maintenances of road
call for huge amount of investment. According to research performed by the Swedish
national Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), in Sweden, total cost of road wear by
freight transport in 2005 was about 676 million SEK. If all the freight transportation carried
out with vehicles weighing more than 40 tonnes is redistributed to vehicles that weigh a
maximum of 40 tonnes, according to the new EU rules, the cost of wear in 2005 would have
been 140 million SEK less [2].
However, limiting the maximum weight of vehicles isnt the only and best measurement to
reduce the pavement wear and thereby reduce the associated cost. If the mechanisms, which
lead to the road surface damage, and the factors that affect them, could be figured out, it
would be possible for vehicle industry, especially heavy vehicle manufacturers, to find out a
way to optimize and improve their trucks in order to minimize the damage. It would also be
good news for the road administration and the construction sector, since they can enhance
roads with explicit target to minimize the damage from vehicle factors.

1.2

Problem description

To accurately describe how the vehicle dynamics will interact with and influence the
pavement, a large amount of work has been carried out from both vehicle dynamic and
pavement point of views. Sun and Dengs work [3] proved that pavement loads are moving
stochastic loads whose power spectral density (PSD) is in proportion to the PSD of
pavement roughness. Then Sun and Greenberg [4], [5] presented the theory to solve the
dynamic response of pavement structure under moving stochastic loads.
A large amount of work has been performed by researchers in order to reveal how the
vehicle parameters affect the pavement load, and then affect the pavement performance [6
1

12]. The importance of dynamic loads frequency and velocity was identified. Markov et al [8]
found that the characteristics most important for dynamic loading include vehicle suspension
type and characteristics, speed, height of pavement faults and joint spacing. Other factors
(such as tyre pressure) contribute to a smaller extent. It was also found that under certain
conditions dynamic loads are 40 % higher than static loads. Hudson et al [9] studied the
impact of truck characteristics on pavements with truck load equivalency factors, and it was
found that the frequency and speed of dynamic loads affects the pavement performance.
Hardy and Cebon [10] studied the validated dynamic road response model and found out
that the base strain and soil strain of flexible pavement are sensitive to vehicle speed, but not
sensitive to the frequency of applied dynamic loads except for some resonance points. Collop
and Cebon [13] used a simple road damage analysis based on the fourth power law. The
result showed that road-friendly suspension (which is air-suspended in this study) does not
have significant e ect on thick pavement damage. However, it does reduce thin pavement
damage. Cebon [14] studied the dynamic axle effects on road damage with a
six-degrees-of-freedom, two dimensional vehicle model, which is similar to a walking beam
model. Four road-damage-related wheel load criteria were developed, namely aggregate force
criterion, fatigue weighted stress criterion, tensile strain fatigue criterion and permanent
deformation criterion. He also proved that the dynamic component of wheel forces may
reduce significantly the service lives of road surfaces which are prone to fatigue failure. Sun
and Kennedy [12] investigated the effects of vehicle parameters, speed, and surface
roughness on the PSD of stochastic pavement loads with quarter-vehicle model. They found
that all these factors will influence the PSD loads. Their influence on the PSD loads were
then given out based on frequencies. It was also found that passenger vehicles produce more
high-frequency PSD loads than heavy vehicles do, and the frequency distribution of
stochastic loads are quite different for these two kinds of vehicles. Sun [15] analysed the
relation between suspension properties and tyre loads based on a walking beam suspension
model. He used the probability that the peak value of the tyre load exceeds a certain given
value to evaluate the road damage, which was based on the fourth power law. It was found
that tyres with high air pressure and suspension systems with small damping will lead to large
tyre loads and thus greater pavement damage. Elseifi et al [16] and Khavassefat et al [17]
established finite element (FE) pavement model to analysis its behaviour under moving
stochastic loads.
Although the vehicle-pavement interaction has been studied for several decades, the principle
of interaction between vehicle and pavement and its influence on road wear havent been
fully revealed yet. The study is still in a primary stage. It is noticed that, most of the studies
use an existing moving load profile, or a stochastic one. A few recent studies used dynamic
tyre loads from vehicle models, in which walking beam model or quarter vehicle model were
used. Quarter vehicle model is a simple yet powerful model for most of vehicle dynamic
2

analysis, which concentrate their attention only on the most important characteristics of
dynamic tyre forces. It provides details about vehicle suspension, but ignores the influence of
yaw and pitch motion. Walking beam model represents the minority of suspensions which
generate large dynamic tyre forces due to unsprung mass pitching motion as well as low
frequency sprung mass motion. However none of them contain the detailed suspension
nonlinearities and complexities of sprung mass motion that are typical of heavy vehicles [18].
To the best knowledge of author, the study of the vehicle related road damage using a more
complex model than the quarter vehicle model has not been found in the literature. None
includes a coupled vehicle-pavement model to study their interaction as well.

1.3

Aim

The aim of this study is to solve the two problems mentioned in previous section: excluding
the influence of yaw and pitch motion and ignoring the interaction between vehicle, tyre and
pavement. It will provide more detailed vehicle models for moving load, which includes pitch
and roll motion, and a vehicle model coupled with pavement mass to include the movement
and force feedback from the pavement. It aims at building a more detailed yet simple model
and more suitable model for further research regarding vehicle, tyre and pavement as a whole
system.
There are three main aims in this study:
1. Build computational truck models, including quarter vehicle, half vehicle and full vehicle
models, as a part of vehicle-tyre-pavement system to estimate road damage;
2. Build a vehicle model coupled with pavement to evaluate the characteristics of
vehicle-tyre-pavement motion as a whole system;
3. Preliminary parameter analysis with the built models to find effects of different
parameters and possible ways to reduce road damage caused by heavy vehicles and the
huge associated cost.

2 Methodology
This chapter explains the methods used in this study to reach the aims.
The work is divided into two major parts:
Building and validating the computational model of vehicle is one of the major parts of this
study. In the first part, vehicle models suitable for vertical vehicle dynamics are studied.
Differential equations for the systems are formulated. Computational models based on the
equations of motion are constructed in Simulink. They are then compared to each other to
evaluate advantages and disadvantages. In the second part, a parametric study is done with
the selected model. Main parameters of the vehicle and the pavement, including mass,
stiffness and damping, are variated to reveal the influence. Then regular patterns are summed
up according to the results.

3 Vehicle models
This chapter introduces the suitable vehicle models and their differential equations.

3.1

Introduction

Dealing with vehicle dynamic problems, there are several models to choose from: from the
simplest quarter vehicle model to the more complicated three-dimensional vehicle model.
Each of them has its own scope of application and degree of precision.
In order to choose the suitable models, properties of concern should be reviewed from view
of pavement engineering first. There are several types of pavements, including flexible,
composite and rigid, used in modern road. Depending on type of pavement, different
materials are used. No matter what type the pavement is, the most important types of road
damage due to heavy vehicles are fatigue cracking and permanent deformation (or rutting)
[19]. Examples are shown in Figures 1-2.

Figure 1 Fatigue cracking [20]

Figure 2 - Permanent deformation-rutting [20]

Both kinds of failure mechanism are affected by several factors, such as construction method,
material properties, environment and traffic load. In this study, only the vehicle load factor is
investigated. Road vehicles interact with the pavement via the tyres that are in direct contact
with the pavement. Tyre force, especially vertical force, and its distribution affect road wear
to a large extent. While fatigue cracking is related to non-uniform contact traction
distribution [21], rutting has a closer link with the vertical forces. Densification (compaction)
and shear plastic deformation induced by vertical tyre force are two major mechanisms
within the pavement materials contributing to permanent deformation [22]. So the vehicle
model used to study pavement failure problems should at least reflect its vertical dynamics.
Other properties, like horizontal motion and vehicle or wheel slip, are not that important.
The quarter vehicle model is the simplest one among models suitable for studying vertical
dynamics of vehicle. It provides vertical dynamics only. The half vehicle model adds pitch
characteristics compared to the quarter vehicle model, and the full vehicle (or four wheels)
model adds the roll motion compared to the half vehicle model. The calculation amount will
increase with the complexity of model. Even the full vehicle model is still a kind of very
simplified model of a vehicle. With the help of a MBS-program like ADAMS, one can model
the vehicle in more detail. However, as the complexity increases, so do the computation time
and the complexity to analyse the results. In this study, the focus is on the three more simple
models: the quarter vehicle, the half vehicle and the full vehicle, since those models are
believed to provide sufficient results.

3.2

Model establishment

In this section, the three vehicle models: the quarter vehicle, the half vehicle and the full
vehicle models are presented. First, the equations of motion are derived under the
assumption that springs and dampers are linear. Then the differential equations are
implemented in Simulink models in order to simulate the models dynamic behaviour.
Dampers and springs in the Simulink model can easily be replaced by nonlinear components
to reveal vehicles nonlinear properties.

3.2.1

Quarter vehicle model

The quarter vehicle model is often used in simple vehicle dynamics calculation when one is
only interested in the vertical motion of the vehicle. It is the simplest vehicle model used to
study vertical motion.
Figure 3 shows the quarter vehicle model, in which dynamics are simplified to vertical
motion of sprung mass and unsprung mass. Sprung mass is the mass of the vehicle part
which is supported above the vehicle suspension. In complex vehicles, like heavy truck in
this study, it can be subdivided into cabin mass and vehicle body mass. Unsprung mass is a
mass representing a part of the suspension, the wheels, the wheel axle and other components
6

connected to them. Sprung mass is coupled to unsprung mass via a spring and a damper,
which represent the vehicle suspension. Likewise unsprung mass is coupled to the pavement
via a spring and a damper, representing the tyre. [23] gives the typical quarter vehicle model,
with and without damper, and methods to decouple and analyse. The quarter vehicle model
can often provide acceptable predictions of vertical motion.

Figure 3 2-DOF Quarter vehicle model [12]

In this study, the object is to model a heavy truck, which is a little different. Considering
comfort of driver, the cabin of modern truck usually isnt rigidly connected to chassis, but via
cabin suspension. The mass of the cabin generally is close to the unsprung mass. The motion
of cabin will influence the whole vertical dynamics of vehicle to some extent, and should be
taken into consideration. It can easily be solved by connecting a mass-spring-damper system
serially to the sprung mass (which represents the vehicle body mass now in the new truck
model), as shown in Figure 4. Figure 5 shows the Simulink model of the 3-DOF quarter
vehicle.

Figure 4 3-DOF quarter vehicle model representing a truck

The motion of the quarter vehicle model of a truck that includes the cabin dynamics can be
described by the following equations of motion:

Where
is mass, is spring stiffness, c is damping coefficient, is vertical displacement
(positive direction is upward and measured from loaded position),
is road unevenness as
input, F is external force acting on each mass. Subscript c indicates cabin, subscript t indicates
tyre/unsprung part, subscript s or no subscript indicates sprung part.
w

1
s

1
s

Fzc

zc'

zc

Fzc

1/mc
Gain8

Road input

-KGain7
k_c
Gain6
1
s

1
s

z'

du/dt
Derivative Saturation
-C-

1
s

1
s

k_t

zt'

zt

Gain3

Vehicle
Force applied on road
c_t

>=
Scope1

Gain4

Switch

k
Gain
In1

simout1

Out1

Fzt

1/mt
-K-

Fz

1/m

Fz

Gain2

Fzt

To Workspace

Gain5
Gain9

Figure 5 Simulink model of the 3-DOF quarter vehicle model representing a truck

3.2.2

Quarter vehicle model coupled with pavement

By including a coupled pavement part, the influence of movement and force from pavement
vibration (although small) can be included, and pavement movement can be roughly
estimated. The integration will give a better understanding of pavement-vehicle interaction
and evaluate the strategy of separating vehicle and pavement model. The pavement could be
represented by a spring and mass combination as a basic assumption, as in Figure 6.

Figure 6 4-DOF quarter vehicle model representing a truck, coupled with simplified pavement

The upper part is exactly the same as in the previous model. The pavement mass,
, is
connected to subgrade via spring
, and tyre suspension directly. The road profile is still
the input, and acts between tyre suspension and pavement mass. The road-tyre irregularity
[24]. The governing equations of motion of the system are:
can be denoted as:

where subscript p indicates pavement.

1
s

1
s

zc'

zc

Fzc

1/mc

Fzc

Gain8

c_c
Gain7
k_c

dissipation
To Workspace1

Gain6
1
s

1
s

z'

Road input

du/dt
Derivative Saturation

1
s

1
s

k_t

zt'

zt

Gain3

-CVehicle
c_t

>=
Scope1

Force applied on road (Dynamic)

Gain4

Switch

k
Gain
In1

Fzt

Out1

Fz

1/m

Fz

Gain2

Fzt

1/mt
-K-

simout

Gain5
Gain9

To Workspace

Gain10
k_p

Fzp
Fzp

1/mp
Gain1

1
s

1
s

zp'

zp

Figure 7 - Simulink model of the 4-DOF quarter vehicle model representing a truck, coupled with simplified
pavement

3.2.3

Half vehicle model

A quarter vehicle model can provide vertical motion behaviour for a vehicle. However, it
doesnt take lateral and longitudinal dynamics as well as pitch and roll motion into account,
as well as pitch, which may also be important. Figure 8 a) shows the 4-DOF half vehicle
model without cabin dynamics. Figure 8 b) shows the 5-DOF half vehicle model with cabin
dynamics. The structure of the front part and rear part of the half vehicles models are similar
to the quarter vehicle model. Pitch motion is included in both models. Figures 9-10 show the
Simulink models of the 4-DOF half vehicle model and 5-DOF half vehicle model
respectively.

10

Figure 8 - Half vehicle model a) without cabin dynamics (4-DOF), b) with cabin dynamics (5-DOF)

The equations of motion for the model without cabin dynamics are:

Where
is pitch angle,
is the moment of inertia around the y-axis, a and b are length
from centre of gravity (COG) to front and rear axle respectively, subscript 1 indicates front
part, 2 indicates rear part, all displacements are measured from loaded position.
The equations of motion for the model with cabin dynamics are:

11

are assumed to be small, thereby small angle

For both models, the pitch angles
approximations have been used in the equations of motion.
By assuming that the front and rear axle will be exposed to the same road profile but with a
time delay, the road profile for the rear axle, , can be expressed as a function of , the
road profile of the front axle, as follows:

Where

is wheel base and

is vehicle speed, which is assumed as a constant.

theta

z
zt1

theta'

z'

z
zt1

theta

zt1'

zt1'

theta'

zt2

w1
z'

zt2'

w1'
Fz1

Fz

Fz

Fzt1
z

Constant

Fzt1

zt1

Constant1

zt2
z'
z'

theta

Scope

theta

zt1
zt2'

theta'
zt1'

w2

zt2

theta'

w2'
Fz2

w1
zt2'

w1'
w2

theta

Fzt2
Constant2

Fzt2

zt2

w2'

Road input

-KScope1

Figure 9 Simulink model of half vehicle model without cabin dynamics (4-DOF)

12

Gain6

HalfCar
To Workspace

theta
z
theta'

zt1
z'

zt1
zt1'

theta

zt2

zt1'

theta'

zt2'
w1
Fz

z'
w1'

zc

Fz

Fz1

Fzt1

zc'

Fz

Fzt1

zt1

Constant1

Fz

z
z

Fzc

zt2
z'

z'
theta
zt1

Scope

theta

zt1'

zt2'

theta'

zt2
w2

theta

zt2'
zc

theta'

w2'

theta'

zc

w1'
w2

theta

Fz2

w1
zc'

Fzt2
Constant2

Fzt2

zt2

w2'

Road input

z'
zc'
Fzc

zc

-KScope1

Gain6

HalfCar
To Workspace

Figure 10 - Simulink model of half vehicle model with cabin dynamics (5-DOF)

3.2.4

Full vehicle model

The half vehicle model can be easily extended to a full vehicle model shown in Figure 11.
Here the cabin dynamics is neglected. Similar to the half vehicle models, the pitch angle
are assumed to be small, thereby small angle approximations have been
and the roll angle
used in the equations of motion. The Simulink model for the full vehicle model is shown in
Figure 12.

13

Figure 11 - Full vehicle model without cabin dynamics (7

(7--dof)
dof)

This
This model
model makes
makes it possible to simulate the influence
influence of
of aa full
full 333-D
D road profile, which is the
reality. Equations of motion are:
reality.

Where ,
are
are moment of inertia around x and y axle in body
body--fixed
fixed coordinates,
is
pitch angle
angle,,
is roll angle,
is half of wheel track
track,, all displacements are measured from
loaded position
position.

14

z
zt11

z'
theta

zt12

z'
theta

theta'

theta
z

theta

z'

theta'

phi

theta'

theta'

phi
zt11'

phi
phi'

zt12'

phi

theta

phi'
phi'

w11

w11

phi

w12

w11'

Fz11

zt11

w12'

Fz12

zt11

zt11

zt11'

zt11'

zt12

zt12

zt12'

zt12'

zt21

zt21

zt11'

w11'
Fzt11
w12

Fzt12

zt11

zt12

zt12

zt12'

w12'

zt21

w21
w21'

zt21'

theta'

zt21'
w22

zt21

z'
theta

zt21'

zt22

z'

zt22
zt22

theta

theta'

zt22
zt22'

theta'

zt22'

zt22'

Fz
zt21'

phi

phi'

w21

w22
Fz21

w21'
Fzt21
Fzt11

zt22'

phi

phi'

theta

phi

Fz11

w22'
Fzt22

zt21

z'

phi'

w22'

Road input

phi'

z'

zt22

Fzt12
Fzt21
Fzt22

Road input1

-KGain

FullCar
To Workspace

Figure 12 Simulink model of the full vehicle model

15

Constant1

Fz

4 Model comparison
This chapter compares the different models presented in the previous chapter, in order to choose a
suitable model for further studies.

The higher model complexity doesnt necessarily lead to matching improvement between
measurements and simulated results. By comparing the models response when exposed to
the same input, the use of a simpler model can be justified if the difference is small enough.
The use of simpler model is often wanted since they reduce the amount of calculation and
thereby reduces the calculation time. This chapter compares the outputs of different models
to the same sinusoidal input and real road profile, and investigates their advantages and
disadvantages.

4.1
4.1.1

Parameters used in simulation

Vehicle parameters

Typical heavy truck parameters specified for the different models are shown in Tables 1-4.
To make different models comparable, the parameters are estimated from the same truck.
They are calculated for each model so that it will represent the front axle dynamics of a truck.
Table 1 2-dof quarter vehicle model parameters

Parameters

Value
3400 kg
300000 N/m
2000 Ns/m
20000 Ns/m

Parameters

Value
350 kg
1000000 N/m
500 Ns/m

Table 2 3-dof quarter vehicle model parameters

Parameters

Value
650 kg
75000 N/m
7500 Ns/m
2750 kg
300000 N/m

Parameters

16

Value
2000 Ns/m
20000 Ns/m
350 kg
1000000 N/m
500 Ns/m

Table 3 - Half vehicle model parameters

Parameters

Value
650 kg
75000 N/m
7500 Ns/m
8800 kg
300000 N/m
2000 Ns/m
*
20000
Ns/m
*
350 kg
1000000 N/m
500 Ns/m
* com denotes compression; ext denotes expansion.

Parameters
*
*

Value
400000 N/m
4000 Ns/m
40000 Ns/m
450 kg
1800000 N/m
1000 Ns/m
50000
2.54 m
1.16 m

Table 4 - Full vehicle model parameters

Parameters

Value
18900 kg
300000
N/m
,
2000 Ns/m
,
*
20000 Ns/m
,
*
350 kg
,
1000000 N/m
,
500 Ns/m
,
400000 N/m
,
4000 Ns/m
,
*
* com denotes compression; ext denotes expansion.

4.1.2

Parameters
,
*
,
,
,

Value
40000 Ns/m
450 kg
1800000 N/m
1000 Ns/m
100000
20000
2.37 m
1.33 m
1.1 m

Pavement parameters

By adding a mass-spring-damper part to the system, the movement and force of pavement
can be included as well. However, the equivalent damping is hard to estimate, and is not
available during this study. Therefore pavement is simplified to a mass-spring system in this
study, which can provide approximation of pavement movement but lacks damping
properties.
The equivalent pavement mass and stiffness can be estimated by the Finite Element Method
(FEM) [17]. The mass cannot be the mass of the model used in FE analysis, but it can be
estimated by obtaining a ratio between the maximum displacement and average displacement
in depth and using this coefficient as multiplier of vehicle mass. In this case:
17

Therefore the estimated pavement mass in the dynamic system would be:

To estimate the pavement stiffness, a selected pavement structure is analysed in order to

obtain the displacement field caused by a uniform pressure on the surface. Figure 13 shows
the vertical displacement of pavement and the corresponding radial distance. The load is
applied with a 30 centimetres radius circular contact patch. Therefore the equivalent mean
stiffness is about 160 MN/m.

Figure 13 Pavement vertical displacement vs. radial distance

4.2

Quarter, half and full vehicle

When the model is improved from quarter vehicle without cabin to half one without cabin,
or from half vehicle without cabin to full one, its complexity increases, so does its
computational amount. How about the improvement on estimation? Two actual road
profiles, E4 Grimsmark longitudinal profile (E4) and 265 East longitudinal profile (265), are
selected to test their responses. The first set of data E4 belongs to a highway 600 km north
of Stockholm. It has high level of unevenness (International Roughness Index: IRI= 2.30
m/km). In Sweden the standard increment for longitudinal direction is 0.1 meter and
thereafter the data is averaged for every 20 meters in order to obtain the IRI value. The
second set of data 265 is the longitudinal roughness of a highway north of Stockholm. The
highway is fairly new and also fairly even (IRI =0.99 m/km), which has lower level of
unevenness compared to E4. It has however some short bridges which are visible on the
18

profile measurements with relatively higher roughness magnitude. The data for these
measurements are from Laser 13 (a laser measuring device) which follows the right rut.
As mentioned in Chapter 1, force (or load) applied on the road from the tyre is commonly
is
used as a measure of road damage. The force applied on the road from the tyre
chosen as output. The dynamic contribution of it can be derived by:

in model without pavement, or by:

in model with pavement. Where

is stiffness of tyre,
is damping coefficient of tyre,
is vertical displacement of unsprung mass,
is vertical displacement of pavement,
and
are both measured from loaded position,
is position of road surface. According to the
circumstances,
may also include both static and dynamic contributions, which will be
specified. The static part
given in Equation 31, which equals to the gravity of the whole
vehicle, should be added to the dynamic part.

where

is mass of various parts of vehicle,

is the acceleration of gravity.

There is only one set of data for each profile. If all wheels in all models use the same set of
data as input, the output from different models will be exactly the same. To reveal the effect
of roll and pitch motion in half or full vehicle models, the road profile data should be
processed first for each wheel. The road profile data is used directly in quarter vehicle model.
For half vehicle model, front wheel uses it directly, rear wheel uses data computed from it
used in the simulation is
and vehicle speed according to Equation 17. The vehicle speed
selected as 20 m/s (~72 km/h). For full vehicle model, left wheels use the same data as half
vehicle data. In order to make the input to right wheels different from left wheels, right
wheels use the data shifted by time t. The forces applied on the road from each model are
then compared. To make them comparable, the front wheel of the half vehicle model and the
front left wheel of the full vehicle model are chosen and plotted.
The responses from the different models due to E4 road profile are shown in Figure 14, in
which t=0.1 s. Subfigure b) is the partial enlarged drawings of Subfigure a). The root mean
square (RMS) value of dynamic portion of force applied on the road from quarter, half and
full vehicle model are 1.3617 kN, 2.0396 kN and 2.2537 kN respectively.

19

Figure 15 shows tyre force of the models due to the 265 road profile. The RMS value of the
dynamic portion of force applied on the road from quarter, half and full vehicle model are
0.6516 kN, 0.9780 kN, and 0.9811 kN respectively.
The differences between models are caused by their differences in including the pitch and
roll dynamic. Similarities can be observed in both amplitude and frequency of tyre force. It is
seen that the differences greatly depend on the unevenness of road. The increased
unevenness will generate larger dynamic tyre force, and bigger roll, pitch and bounce motion,
which will increase output differences between the models. Profile 265 is evener compared to
profile E4, so its RMS values are smaller than those of E4. The RMS difference between half
vehicle model and quarter vehicle model of profile 265 is much smaller compared to E4 as
well.

20

a)
Force applied on the road
12
Quarter vehicle
Half vehicle
Full vehicle

10
8
6

Fw (kN)

4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8

6
Time (s)

10

12

b)
Force applied on the road
12

Quarter vehicle
Half vehicle
Full vehicle

10
8

Fw (kN)

6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
4

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8
Time (s)

5.2

5.4

5.6

Figure 14 The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle models are simulated with
the E4 Grimsmark longitudinal road profile.

21

a)
Force applied on the road
4
Quarter vehicle
Half vehicle
Full vehicle

3
2

Fw (kN)

1
0
-1
-2
-3
-4

6
Time (s)

10

12

b)
Force applied on the road
4
Quarter vehicle
Half vehicle
Full vehicle

3
2

Fw (kN)

1
0
-1
-2
-3
7.4

7.6

7.8

8.2
Time (s)

8.4

8.6

8.8

Figure 15 - The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle models are simulated with
the 265 East longitudinal road profile.

22

Figure 16 shows the tyre force due to the E4 road profile. Inputs and outputs of the quarter
vehicle model and the half vehicle model are exactly the same as in Figure 14. Here equals
to 1 s instead of 0.1 s, which increases the unevenness level between left and right sides. The
RMS values of the dynamic portion of force applied on the road are equal to 1.3617 kN,
2.0396 kN, and 6.5414 kN respectively. Larger difference can now be observed between
models due to the increase in unevenness. For uneven road, the usage of simulation results
from the quarter vehicle model or the half vehicle model may introduce large error when
evaluating the dynamic tyre force. The quarter vehicle model can well represent the real
dynamics only when the road is relatively even.
Force applied on the road
20
Quarter vehicle
Half vehicle
Full vehicle

15

Fw (kN)

10

-5

-10

-15

6
Time (s)

10

12

Figure 16 - The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle models are simulated with
the E4 road profile.

To the authors knowledge, there isnt any clear boundary for large tyre force with respect of
road damage proposed in literatures. In [15], Sun used , the possibility of peak value of
wheel load exceeds a certain value , to estimate the road damage from vehicle.
is related
to vehicle gravity:

where
is mass of various parts of vehicle,
is the acceleration of gravity,
percentage of the static vehicle load for a given level of .
23

is the

when
. Its in the same order of magnitude compared
In this study,
with the tyre force difference between models shown in Figures 14-16. The difference in
amplitude isnt negligible, especially when the road is relatively uneven. It can also be
observed that the difference between the half vehicle model and the full vehicle model is
smaller than the difference between the quarter vehicle model and the half vehicle model.
That is because the inertia and track width are much less than and wheelbase. There is
no obvious change in frequency.

4.3

Influence of coupled pavement

The quarter vehicle model is the most common model used when evaluating road damage. A
quarter vehicle coupled with pavement is introduced in Section 3.2.2. How large difference is
there in response between the models when evaluating tyre-road contact force? In this
section, quarter vehicle models with and without pavement are compared to see the effect of
coupled pavement.
Figures 17-18 show responses from model with and without coupled pavement to sinusoidal
road profile and E4 road profile. They include both the static and dynamic contribution of
the tyre contact force. The difference is small enough to be neglected. Figure 19 shows the
amplitude of tyre and pavement motion in response to E4. To make the motion of tyre and
pavement comparable, only dynamic contribution is shown in the figure. Pavement
displacement is a high-frequency vibration. The amplitude of the displacement is so small,
that it is enlarged by 50 times in the figure to be seen clearly. It is much smaller compared to
the motion of the unsprung mass, even after being enlarged by 50 times. The pavement
dynamics influence on the vehicle dynamics is rather small, so it is possible to use only the
quarter vehicle model to compute the contact force. However, with the help of the coupled
model, one can get a rough estimation for pavement dynamics.

24

Force applied on road

-33
Without pavement
With pavement

-34
-35

Fw (kN)

-36
-37
-38
-39
-40
-41

4
5
Time (s)

Figure 17 The force applied on the road when the vehicle model is excited with 1 Hz sinusoidal input.
Force applied on road
-28
Without pavement
With pavement

-30

Fw (kN)

-32

-34

-36

-38

-40

-42
0

5
Time (s)

10

Figure 18 - The force applied on the road when the vehicle models are excited with the E4 road profile.

25

Vetical motion
0.04
Unsprung mass(without pavement)
Unsprung mass(with pavement)
Pavement*50

0.02

Z (m)

-0.02

-0.04

-0.06

-0.08

-0.1

5
Time (s)

10

Figure 19 The vertical movement of tyre and pavement when the vehicle models are excited with the E4 road
profile.

Wheel hop is a special condition which needs to be considered in all vehicle models. Large
displacement of the road will induce large dynamic tyre forces. When the induced upward
dynamics tyre force is greater than the downward vehicle gravity, the tyres will lose contact
with road surface, and wheel hop will occur. For vehicle models without pavement dynamics,
wheel hop can easily be handled by setting zero as the upper limit of tyre force (combination
of both dynamic and static tyre force). For vehicle models including pavement dynamics,
pavement should be decoupled from vehicle when wheel hop happens. The decoupling
algorithm is implemented in the Simulink model. An extreme condition is designed to reveal
it. It is assumed that the vehicle is running on a very uneven road, the height difference is
about 1 meter. Vehicle speed is still 20 m/s. The vertical dynamics of the vehicle is so large
that its possible for tyre to loose contact with the pavement. As shown in Figure 20, the
(
is the tyre force acting on the pavement, whose
model is decoupled when
positive direction is upward), which means tyre has lost contact with the pavement, and is
kept to be 0 until the tyre get in contact with road surface again. The pavement part will
freely oscillate during the wheel hop. Compared to the model excluding pavement but with
wheel hop taken into account, difference exists after wheel hops, which is introduced by the
free oscillation of pavement mass during wheel hop. The model including pavement but
, which is impossible for a
without wheel hop taken into account will result in positive
real vehicle.

26

Road profile
1.5

w (m)

1
0.5
0
-0.5

10

10

Force applied on road

Fw (kN)

100

-100

-200

5
Time (s)

Figure 20 - The force applied on the road when the vehicle models are simulated with high-level unevenness,
to activate wheel hop.

4.4

Energy dissipation

The 4-DOF quarter vehicle model with simplified pavement is used in this section to study
the energy dissipation in the vehicle. Figure 21 shows the power dissipation in each damper
of the quarter vehicle model simulated with the road profile E4. The Root Mean Square
(RMS) value of the power dissipation is 9.7 W in cabin suspension damper, 91.1 W in vehicle
suspension damper, and 5.8 W due to the tyre damping. Figure 22 shows the power
dissipation in each damper in the quarter vehicle model simulated with the road profile 265.
The RMS value of power dissipation is 1.0 W in cabin suspension damper, 5.7 W in vehicle
suspension damper, and 6.9 W due to the tyre damping. The dissipation in pavement is not
included since its damping is not included in the model. With relatively uneven road profile,
like E4 in Figure 21, loss in vehicle suspension is dominant, because most of the vehicle
vertical dynamics are damped in main suspension. However, with relatively even road profile,

27

like 265 in Figure 22, loss in the tyre may be higher than in vehicle suspension, because the
vertical dynamics are light enough to be well damped in tyre.
Power dissipation in each damper
1800
Cabin suspension
Vehicle suspension
Tire

1600
1400
1200

Power (W)

1000
800
600
400
200
0
-200

10
Time (s)

12

14

16

18

20

Figure 21 Power dissipation in each damper in the quarter vehicle model simulated with Profile E4
Power dissipation in each damper
250
Cabin suspension
Vehicle suspension
Tire

200

Power (W)

150

100

50

-50

10
Time (s)

12

14

16

18

20

Figure 22 Power dissipation in each damper in the quarter vehicle model simulated with Profile 265

28

5 Parametric study
In this chapter, the 4-DOF quarter vehicle model with simplified pavement is analysed to find the
parameters that influence the road damage most.

5.1

Typical response and frequency distribution

Road damage is the general term for deterioration of road conditions. It is caused by the
combination of various factors including pavement material, construction, tyre force,
temperature etc. Fatigue cracking and rutting are two major mechanisms causing road
damage by heavy vehicles. Besides them, each kind of road damage has its unique
mechanisms. There isnt a widely-agreed unified standard to evaluate the combined effect of
different kinds of road damage.
The fourth power law is usually used in pavement design to aggregate the estimated traffic
during the service life into the number of equivalent standard axle loads (ESALs)[25], [26]. It
can be used to give out a rough estimation of road damage by static axle load. The number of
ESALs N attributed to static load P is

where
is generally taken to be 80 kN. It aggregates the traffic into a simple number of
ESLAs, and uses ESLAs to indicate the road damage caused by the traffic loads. However,
its validity is questionable. Current vehicle and pavement conditions, traffic volumes are
figured out to be significantly different from the conditions of the AASHO road test, which
is the basis and source of the fourth power law [27], [28]. The results from most recent
researches show that the damage exponent in Equation 33 may take a wide range of values
[25].
There isnt any widely recognized method to estimate the overall damage to road based on
dynamic tyre force. According to Sun et al [5], Hardy et al [10] and Cebon [14], road damage
is directly related to tyre force and its frequency, especially the tyre force. Cebon [26] gave
out the common fatigue models developed from laboratory experiments:

where
is the number of cycles to failure at strain level ,
is a constant that usually
is a constant that depends on the material and
depends on the stiffness of the material,
the mode of distress. The strain can be calculated from dynamic tyre force
by FEM
model of pavement. As mentioned in previous chapter, Sun [15] took the times that
is
higher than a selected limit as an indicator of possible road damage.
is quite important in
analysis of road damage caused by vehicle, so how vehicle parameters and pavement
29

characteristics affects it will be studied in this chapter. The quarter car model with coupled
pavement is chosen for this investigation.
Although there is inaccuracy because of the absence of roll, pitch motion in quarter vehicle
model, the parameter study with quarter vehicle model can reveal the effects of major vehicle
parameters investigated in this study.
Figures 23-25 show the model response to different road profiles. Tyre force is summation
of the static force (the normal load is 36.75 kN) and the dynamic force. The amplitude of
dynamic part is of concern and should be as small as possible to reduce the road damage.
Pavement motion is high frequency resonance around its equilibrium position. The
amplitude is quite small due to its high stiffness.
Road profile
w (m)

0.01
0
-0.01

10

10

10

Force applied on road

Fw (kN)

-36
-37
-38

-6

Zp (m)

Pavement motion

x 10

0
-5

5
Time (s)

Figure 23 - The force applied on the road and the pavement motion when the vehicle models are simulated
with the 0.5 Hz / 10 mm sinusoidal input.

30

Road profile

w (m)

0.1

-0.1

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

35

40

45

50

35

40

45

50

Force applied on road

0
Fw (kN)

-20
-40
-60

10

15

-4

20

25

30

Pavement motion

x 10

Zp (m)

0
-5
-10

10

15

20

25
Time (s)

30

Figure 24 - The force applied on the road and the pavement motion when the vehicle models are simulated
with the E4 road profile.

Road profile

w (m)

0.1

-0.1

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

35

40

45

50

35

40

45

50

Force applied on road

Fw (kN)

-20
-30
-40
-50

10

15

-4

Zp (m)

20

25

30

Pavement motion

x 10

-2
0

10

15

20

25
Time (s)

30

Figure 25 - The force applied on the road and the pavement motion when the vehicle models are simulated
with the 265 road profile.

31

Figure 26 shows the Bode diagram of the quarter vehicle model with the parameters in
Chapter 4.1.1. Table 5 presents the systems natural frequencies and damping. There are four
eigenvalues and their corresponding eigen-frequency. The eigen-frequency of vehicle body
suspension and cabin suspension is too close that they locate at the same peak in lower
frequency range.
Bode Diagram
160

Magnitude (dB)

140
120
100
80
60
180

Phase (deg)

135
90
45
0
-1

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 26 Bode diagram of quarter vehicle model

Table 5 - Natural frequency and damping of the quarter vehicle model

Part
Suspension
Cabin
Tyre

5.2

Eigenvalue
-1.18e+000 7.73e+000i
-7.15e+000 1.05e+001i
-1.72e+001 5.80e+001i

Damping
1.51e-001
5.64e-001
2.85e-001

Freq. (Hz)
1.2446
2.0213
9.6289

Effect of mass

By changing the parameters of the model, the effect of different parameters can be revealed.
Mass, spring stiffness and damping coefficient are investigated separately in the following
sections to study their effects. Tyre force is chosen as the indicator of their effects, because it
affects pavement damage directly. Its dynamic part is influenced more by changes in
parameters mentioned above and of more interests than the static part. In addition, in the
investigation of effect of mass, tyre forces will be not comparable if static part is included. So
only dynamic force is presented and discussed in following sections.

32

In this section, mass of different part of the 4-DOF quarter vehicle model is changed to
investigate its effect. Figures 27-29 a) show the tyre force in response to E4 road profile. The
original mass is compared to the mass altered based on it. For instance, the original sprung
, and 200 % of it, . It can be seen from the
mass, , is compared with 50 % of it,
simulation results that with greater mass, the amplitude of tyre force tends to be higher. The
effects of cabin, vehicle body and unsprung mass are different. Vehicle body mass has the
biggest effect, while unsprung mass has the smallest. Figures 27-29 b) show the Bode
diagram of the vehicle with different masses. Its clear that, for sprung mass (vehicle body
and cabin), increasing mass will lead to increasing gain in low frequency range (0-2 Hz), and
decreasing gain in medium frequency range (2-10 Hz). Sprung mass wont influence high
frequency behaviour. On the contrary, unsprung mass only affect high frequency part.
Greater unsprung mass will lead to larger gain in high frequency range (>10 Hz). The road
profile input is usually in the low frequency range (<2 Hz), where the effect of vehicle body
mass is prior to cabin. So the difference in tyre force is most obvious in Figure 27 a), and
nearly indiscernible in Figure 29 a).
a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

15

150

Magnitude (dB)

0.5m
m
2m
10

100

Fw (kN)

50
180
0.5m

m
Phase (deg)

135

-5

2m

90

45

-10

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 27 - Effect of vehicle body mass a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the
vehicle model is simulated with different body mass, b) Bode diagram of models with different body mass.

33

10

a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

10

160

0.5mc
8

mc

140

Magnitude (dB)

2mc

Fw (kN)

120

100

80

60
180
0.5mc

-2

mc

135
Phase (deg)

-4
-6

90

45

-8
-10

2mc

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

-1

20

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 28 Effect of cabin mass a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle
model is simulated with different cabin mass, b) Bode diagram of models with different cabin mass.
a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

160

0.5mt
mt

140
Magnitude (dB)

2mt
4

120

100

Fw (kN)

80

0
60
180

-2

0.5mt

Phase (deg)

-6

2mt
90

45

-8

-10

mt

135

-4

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 29 Effect of unsprung mass a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle
model is simulated with different unsprung mass, b) Bode diagram of models with different unsprung mass.

Pavement mass will not influence tyre force at all, except on its natural frequency. As
discussed in Section 4.1.2, the original pavement mass is 1.4 times of the total vehicle mass.
34

10

In Figure 30, where is the total vehicle mass, it is compared with pavement mass
which is 0.6 times and 5 times of . Figure 30 b) shows the Bode diagram of models
with different pavement mass. The gain is almost the same, and the natural frequency of
pavement is high (>12 Hz). So for normal road-vehicle interaction studies, changes of
pavement mass will not influence the tyre force. It is confirmed by the response to road
profile in Figure 30 a).
a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

160

mp=0.6mvehicle

140

mp=1.4mvehicle

120
Magnitude (dB)

mp=5mvehicle
4

100
80

Fw (kN)

60

40

-2

20
360
mp=0.6mvehicle

Phase (deg)

-6

mp=5mvehicle
270

225

-8

-10

mp=1.4mvehicle

315

-4

180

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 30 - Effect of pavement mass a) The dynamic portion of the force applied the on road when the vehicle
model is simulated with different pavement mass, b) Bode diagram of models with different pavement mass.

5.3

Effect of stiffness

Figure 31-33 show the responses and Bode diagrams of vehicles with different spring
stiffness. Spring stiffness mainly influences the medium and high frequency behaviour. Effect
of suspension spring is significant. Higher spring stiffness implies higher gain in 1-5 Hz
frequency range, which means stiffer suspension spring will introduce higher damage. Cabin
spring doesnt have much effect. So change of cabin spring will not influence the road
damage much. Tyre stiffness has similar effect as the suspension spring. Stiffer tyre gives
higher road damage, but in high frequency range (>9 Hz).

35

10

a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

10

160

0.5k s
8

ks

140

Magnitude (dB)

2k s

4
2

120

100

80

60
180
0.5ks

-2

ks

135
Phase (deg)

-4
-6

90

45

-8
-10

2ks

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

-1

20

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 31 Effect of suspension spring stiffness a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when
the vehicle model is simulated with different suspension spring stiffness, b) Bode diagram of models with
different suspension spring stiffness.
a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

160

0.5k c
kc

140
Magnitude (dB)

2k c
4

120

100

Fw (kN)

80

-2

60
180

-4

135
Phase (deg)

0.5kc

-6

2kc
90

45

-8

-10

kc

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 32 Effect of cabin spring stiffness a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the
vehicle model is simulated with different cabin spring stiffness, b) Bode diagram of models with different
cabin spring stiffness.

36

10

a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

15

180

0.5k t
160

kt
Magnitude (dB)

2k t

10

140
120
100

Fw (kN)

80

60
180
0.5kt
kt

135
Phase (deg)

-5

-10

2kt
90

45

-15

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 33 Effect of tyre stiffness a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle
model is simulated with different tyre stiffness, b) Bode diagram of models with different tyre stiffness.

As show in Figure 34, pavement stiffness will only influence on its natural frequency, which
is similar to the effect of pavement mass. It does not change the tyre force. That is because
compared to the suspension or the tyre stiffness of the vehicle, the pavement is much stiffer
and not comparable to them. The pavement can thereby be considered as rigid here.

37

10

a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

150

0.5k p
kp

Magnitude (dB)

2k p
4

Fw (kN)

100

50

0
0
360

-2

0.5kp

Phase (deg)

-6

2kp
270

225

-8

-10

kp

315

-4

180

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 34 - Effect of pavement stiffness a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the
vehicle model is simulated with different pavement stiffness, b) Bode diagram of models with different
pavement stiffness.

5.4

Effect of damping

Changes in damping will affect the tyre force as well, but in a different way compared with
changes in mass or spring stiffness. With smaller suspension damping, the resonance peaks at
the resonance frequencies of the sprung mass and the tyre tend to be higher, and the valley
between them tend to be lower (Figure 35 b). With increasing suspension damping, the gain
between sprung mass and tyre resonant frequency will increase as well. However, when the
damping is increased to its saturation, it will stop increasing and keep to be a gradual slope.
I.e. a better damped road will result in smaller tyre force as shown in Figure 35 a). In Figure
36, it can be seen that changes in the cabin damping dont affect the tyre force much, and the
difference is small for the real road response as well. Figure 37 shows that the tyre damping
only effect the gain in the high frequency range (>40 Hz), and has no effect on the lower
part. Increasing the tyre damping will increase the gain in the high frequency range, but for
the low or medium frequency range, the gain will remain the same. So the tyre forces in
Figure 37 a) are almost the same. Compared to mass and stiffness, damping does not affect
the tyre force significantly.

38

10

a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

160

0.5c s
cs

140
Magnitude (dB)

2c s
4

120

100

Fw (kN)

80

0
60
180

-2

0.5c s

Phase (deg)

-6

2c s
90

45

-8

-10

cs

135

-4

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

-1

20

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 35 Effect of suspension damping a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the
vehicle model is simulated with different suspension damping, b) Bode diagram of models with different
suspension damping.
a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

160

0.5c c
cc

140
Magnitude (dB)

2c c
4

120

100
0.5c c
cc
2c c

-2

60
180

-4

135
Phase (deg)

Fw (kN)

80

-6

45

-8

-10

90

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 36 Effect of cabin damping a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle
model is simulated with different cabin damping, b) Bode diagram of models with different cabin damping.

39

10

a)

b)

Force applied on road

Bode Diagram

160

0.5c t
ct

140
Magnitude (dB)

2c t
4

120

100
0.5c t
ct

2c t

-2

60
180

-4

135
Phase (deg)

Fw (kN)

80

-6

45

-8

-10

90

10
12
Time (s)

14

16

18

20

-1

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (Hz)

Figure 37 - Effect of tyre damping a) The dynamic portion of the force applied on the road when the vehicle
model is simulated with different tyre damping, b) Bode diagram of models with different tyre damping.

40

10

6 Conclusions
This chapter concludes the work done in this study, discusses the results and their implication to road
damage caused by heavy vehicle.

In this study, vehicle models used in vehicle-road interaction are investigated. The quarter
vehicle model, the half vehicle model and the full vehicle model are selected. The equations
of motion are derived for each of them, which are then implemented into Simulink models in
order to simulate the vehicle motions for different road inputs. To study the interaction
between pavement and vehicle, a simplified pavement model is added to the quarter vehicle
model.
All models are then compared. From quarter vehicle to half vehicle and then to full vehicle,
the complexity increases. In section 4.2, it is showed that how detailed the model is does
affect its estimation results. The difference in response between the models is non-negligible,
and it will increase with the increase of road unevenness. For simple road damage analysis,
the quarter vehicle model is sufficient. However, for more complicated road damage analysis,
especially with uneven road profile, more complex model should be used to get better results.
Adding the pavement part wont change the dynamic behaviour of vehicle part much. The
difference between models coupled with and without pavement is negligible. However, with
the help of the coupled pavement part, the movement of pavement mass can be estimated.
The coupled pavement will also influence the tyre force, when the road surface is greatly
uneven and wheel hop exists.
The performed parametric study reveals the relation between pavement loads and
vehicle/pavement parameters, which can help to understand the dynamic pavement loads
explicitly. A summary of the results are shown in Table 6 below.

41

Table 6 Effects of different parameters on tyre force

Parameters

Gain

Around
Around

Cabin mass

Vehicle body mass

Unsprung mass

Pavement mass

Cabin spring

Suspension spring

Tyre stiffness

Pavement stiffness

Cabin damping

Suspension damping

Tyre damping

: Significantly increase or decrease; : Slightly increase or decrease; : No change.

: Natural frequency of sprung mass; : Natural frequency of unsprung mass.
From the results in Table 6 it can be concluded:
1. The tyre force will change with change of vehicle parameters. Vehicle body and
suspension part have the greatest effect, while cabin and its suspension have the least
effect;
2. The effects of vehicle body and suspension are mainly in low frequency range (<2 Hz).
Cabin and its suspensions effects are mainly in medium frequency range (2-10 Hz).
Unsprung mass and tyres effects are mainly in high frequency range (>10 Hz). Normal
road profile is mainly in low frequency range, so the effect of changes in cabin and tyre is
not obvious compared to vehicle body and suspension part;
3. Different components influence the tyre force differently. Increasing the mass or the
spring stiffness will increase the gain from road input to tyre force. Increasing the
damping will lower the peak on its corresponding natural frequency and level up the
valley between them, until the system is well damped. After its well damped, the gain
between peaks should be a gradual slope, and will not change according to increasing of
damping anymore;

42

4. Changes of pavement parameters will not influence the dynamic road load. It will only
change its resonant frequency, which is quite high and hard to be reached during normal
road transport.

From vehicle point of view, the best way to reduce dynamic tyre force and road damage is to
decrease the mass, especially vehicle body mass, and the suspension stiffness, especially main
suspension. Having vehicle well damped helps to reduce road damage as well. More
lightweight vehicle body design and restricting vehicle load can help to reduce vehicle mass.
Using softer suspension can lower dynamic tyre load, but will degrade roll stiffness and
hence reduce static roll-over performance at the same time. It also increases static suspension
deflection, and therefore increases the sensitivity of ride height to static load, which is
undesirable in a truck [29]. However these problems can be solved by using anti-roll bars,
independent suspension, active or semi-active suspensions. Compared with mass and spring
stiffness, its more complicated to optimize dynamic tyre force by changing damping, because
changing damping will increase gain in some frequency and decrease it in other frequency.
Active damper provides a good solution for the problem. By using an actuator instead of a
passive damper, active damper can provide different damping to difference force which can
be controlled and optimized by designer. Thus it can be adjusted to minimize the dynamic
tyre force.

43

7 Future work
This chapter gives some suggestion for future work.

In this study, different models suitable for analysis of vehicle road dynamic and road damage
caused by it are developed and analysed. Although the quarter vehicle model is used because
of its simplicity and acceptable accuracy when performing the parameter analysis, half- and
full vehicle can still be used to handle more complex problems or problems needing higher
accuracy, especially for uneven road. The pavement model used in this study contains only
mass and spring. The damping part should also be added in further studies to improve the
accuracy of model. However, its tricky to find out a value for pavement damping.
If available, the tyre model can replaced by more advanced tyre model, which can compute
force distribution. And then pavement model can be replaced by an FE model to give out
detailed damage estimation.

44

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47