Active and semi-active suspensions for articulated vehicles to minimise tyre wear

Abstract: Tyre wear is a vital problem in vehicles, especially in articulated vehicles because of their heavier axle loads. Tyre wear can not only do harm to vehicle dynamics but also cause tyre particle emissions. Therefore, solutions that can minimise tyre wear are where this thesis work focuses. The suspension design is one of the main factors affecting tyre wear. This thesis considers different kinds of semi-active (such as ADD, SH-2 and GH-2) and active suspensions (\(H_\infty\) control) and compares them with a passive suspension with regards to tyre wear. Driving comfort and road holding are considered as well. The simulation starts by running a IPG/TruckMaker model on a route introducing a certain road roughness profile, and outputs lateral slip angles, which together with vehicle parameters and route data are input into a Simulink model. Then, based on the static vertical load on each axles of the articulated vehicle, three different quarter car models corresponding to the axles with various suspension systems are built in Simulink. Simulation results show that the active suspension (\(H_\infty\) control approach) works best in minimising tyre wear, reducing tyre wear by 1-10\% compared to the passive suspension when the vehicle is driving on road profile Class C (country road). Meanwhile, several control strategies of \(H_\infty\) control are applied in order to result in overall good vehicle performance considering comfort and road holding. Semi-active suspensions also work well in reducing tyre wear, but the amount of tyre wear reduction is lower than that of the \(H_\infty\) controllers.