OPTIMIZATION OF DAMPING CHARACTERISTICS IN VEHICLE DYNAMICS

In vehicle dynamics, designing the characteristics of shock absorbers is an important subproblem which determines the overall behavior of the vehicle to a high extent. Their design can be supported by numerical optimization. In the paper the problem of an adequate description is discussed where the mathematical function type used is determined by physical effects. In order to apply efficient optimization algorithms, sensitivities with respect to state variables and control nodes of the characteristics are computed. A suspension design problem based on a multibody system model of a vehicle is formulated and solved by multicriterion optimization. Results for different preferences on comfort and riding safety are shown.