Creating a Shimable Suspension Model using MotionView
Altair EmployeeOverview:
Adjusting suspension angles is crucial for optimizing vehicle handling, tire wear, and overall performance. The ability to customize the camber, caster, and toe angles of your suspension effectively can be the difference between first or last place when it comes to motorsport. For this purpose, a modified front suspension model has been created to explore the change in suspension angles through suspension hardpoint shimming.
These suspension shims are small, flat pieces of material used in a vehicle's suspension system to adjust and fine-tune various aspects of the suspension setup.
Follow along with the below video series which covers the entire process of:
- Assembling a front half car model using the Assembly Wizard
- Creating a new lower control arm system to feature these shim and top hat entities
- Using the same techniques to modify the upper control arm and tierod
- Easily defining a Kinematics and Compliance event and understanding the automatic Suspension Design Factor outputs
- Integrating HyperStudy to optimize the suspension for a given toe and camber angle target
- Completing a DOE to better understand sensitivity factors and generating a Pareto Front of solutions.
Prerequisite:
For a complete understanding of all topics covered in this video, it is recommended to have completed both the MotionView/MotionSolve Introduction v2023 eLearning and MotionSolve v2023 for Vehicle Modeling eLearning, although it is not strictly required.
Release Version: 2025.0
Completed Model:
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Comments
Altair EmployeeHey @ChrisCoker,
what @GTT Adam has created is a potential design of a fully adjustable suspension geometry for fine tuning. As the wishbone geometry can be altered (Outer and Inner Ball joint position) it is important to be able to alter also tie rod's position to eliminate bump steer for example. You can download the full model attached above in zip file and check in MotionView where Adam used motion entities to allow adjustability. You'll see that he created something similar to bump steer tie rod kits which are sold online for car modification enthusiasts.
Best regards,
Orestes
Altair EmployeeThanks for taking a look at this, Chris! Through this model, we only intend to showcase the modeling methods applicable to shim and top hat adjustment systems commonly used in race cars. The particular customer for whom this model was developed, has this exact type of ITRB and OTRB adjustment :) The "translational joint and split bodies" method can be used to model the scenario you are describing for tie-rods, and it is applicable to alignment adjustments in most production vehicles.
Looking at the animation, I have some questions about how the tie rod length was adjusted. It appears that the "shim" is happening at the end of the inner tie rod location. This is not typically how tie rod lengths are adjusted. Normally they are threaded, and this adjusts the length of the rod, but still maintaining the location of the ITRB. In this case, by moving the hardpoint of the ITRB, the kinematics of the steering system are significantly altered.