A computational optimization procedure aiding the design of vehicular suspension systems

Resumo

Aiming at the design of formula-style vehicles, this manuscript presents a computational procedure
based on optimization principles for the concept of vehicular suspension systems. The design criteria seek to find
the three-dimensional location of both upper and lower ball joints of a double wishbone suspension in view of
particular relationship between the camber gain and the steering angle. The studied case investigated concerns in
optimize the performance of the vehicle in view of the well-known skidpad test. Geometric constraints imposed
by components of the suspension system are also considered within the formulation, which in turns define the
search space. Due to the small amount of design variables, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is the heuristic
algorithm chosen to solve the optimization problem. The achieved results show that the proposed design criterium
was reached and the constraints were fulfilled within less than one second in an ordinary laptop computer, showing
the effectiveness of the numerical procedure.