Abstract: The steering system of commercial vehicle is
asymmetrical to left side and right side, this causes vehicle pull
during braking application. This directly affects the safety of the
driver and vehicle ride & handling performance. In a similar
way, the asymmetrical suspension parameter unintentionally set
during vehicle assembly are also major contributors for creating a
vehicle pull. After application of brake force, the tire contact
patch creates a moment about the kingpin axis. However, this moment
generated is different on left and right-side due to asymmetrical
design parameters resulting in vehicle deviation from its intended
path. A large deviation may lead to on road accidents. Some of the
major factors which are responsible for the vehicle pulling
phenomenon are the asymmetrical steering system compliance,
asymmetrical suspension geometry, tire, braking system, road camber
etc. The present work is useful to analyze the effect of change
(left to right side) in the asymmetrical Steering wheel parameter
on vehicle pulling at the early stage of vehicle development. On
production vehicles, it is practically not possible to achieve the
same parameter on both sides. Therefore, it is important to predict
the vehicle response to these variations and how does it affect
vehicle handling characteristics. A full vehicle model is built
with different vehicle subsystems in MSC ADAMS/Car. The Vehicle
dynamic Simulation were conducted to measure the amount of vehicle
pulling by application of brake force on each wheel. This model
acts as input to ADAMS/Insight® for DOE study. The systematic DOE
study is carried out to check the impact of different parameters
i.e., cross camber, cross caster, cross toe, and cross scrub
radius, on the vehicle behavior during different braking
conditions. Based on this DOE Study the influence of each parameter
is estimated on vehicle stability during straight-ahead
braking.