Design, analysis and investigation of an independent suspension for passenger cars

The objective of this paper is the design of a front suspension. The layout used is the McPherson strut, widely adopted for road cars due to its simplicity and to the limited space required. The handling, comfort and durability of the suspension are strictly related to the position of the hardpoints, and to the elastic elements. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to investigate the roll behavior of a standard vehicle during cornering. A multi-body dynamics software is used to perform ramp-steer simulations on a full-vehicle model. Results show the different peculiarities of three specific cases of analysis, each of them emphasising the effects of a specific parameter on the whole system.