Design of a Formula Student

Race Car Spring-Damper

System.
P.C.M. van den Bos, 0576519
CST2010.024

Master traineeship

Supervisor: Dr.ir. P.C.J.N. Rosielle

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Control Systems Technology Group

Eindhoven, March, 2010

 Abstract

University Racing Eindhoven (URE) is a team of 50 students who compete in the

Formula Student competition. For the 2009-2010 season, URE started building their
sixth car: the URE06.
The URE06 will be equipped with a newly designed front and rear multi-link
wheel suspension. The rear frame that holds the powertrain, drivetrain and suspen-
sion will be shortened to reduce total mass and yaw inertia of the car.
The main subject of this report is the design of a spring-damper system for the
URE06. First, the working principle of a suspension system is explained and a list
of requirements the spring-damper system has to fulfill is determined. Subsequently,
the kinematics of the front and rear spring-damper systems have been set. This
resulted in a set of coordinates. The individual parts have been constructed next,
taking the requirements into account. Components such as the anti-roll bars have
been analyzed by hand calculations, while other parts have been optimized using
FEM analysis.
Contents
1 Introduction 1

2 The suspension system 2

2.1 Working principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.2 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Front spring-damper system 5

3.1 Final design overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Front bump system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.1 Bump motion ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.2 Dampers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.3 Main rocker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.4 Wheel travel sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3 Front anti-roll system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3.1 Stiffness of the anti-roll bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3.2 Stress in the anti-roll bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3.3 Spline connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4 Rear spring-damper system 12

4.1 Final design overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2 Rear bump system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.1 Pushrod versus pullrod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.2 Main rocker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2.3 Wheel travel sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.3 Rear anti-roll system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.1 Placement of the anti-roll system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.2 Bearing tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.3.3 Stiffness of the anti-roll bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.3.4 Stress in the anti-roll bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

5 Conclusion and recommendations 24

References 25

A Front spring-damper system coordinates 26

B Rear spring-damper system coordinates 27

C Working drawings of the front and rear spring-damper system 28

Paul van den Bos Introduction

1 Introduction
University Racing Eindhoven (URE) is a team of 50 students who compete in the Formula
Student competition. This competition was initiated in the United States in 1981 by the
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). The main goal is providing students with an
opportunity to gain experience in design, manufacturing, management, marketing and
people skills by designing, building and racing a single seater race car. Nowadays, four
European races are available in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Austria.

Figure 1.1: Last years car of University Racing Eindhoven: the URE05.

Teams get a lot of freedom to design their own car. The most important rules a Formula
student car has to comply with state that it has to have:

a chassis that is designed in accordance with a number of safety regulations.

a four-stroke engine with a maximum displacement of 610 cc.

an inlet restriction with a maximum diameter of 20 mm.

a fully operational suspension system.

For the 2009-2010 season, URE started building their sixth car: the URE06. Besides
that, its predecessor, the URE05 (see figure 1.1), will be converted from petrol driven to
full electric. It will be used to compete in new the Formula Student Electric competition.
The URE06 will be equipped with a newly designed front and rear multi-link wheel
suspension. The rear frame that holds the powertrain, drivetrain and suspension will be
shortened to reduce total mass and yaw inertia of the car. A new spring-damper system
has to be designed to make this possible.
The main subject of this report is the design of a spring-damper system for the URE06.
Chapter 2 explains the working principle of a suspension system and lists the requirements
the spring-damper system has to fulfill. The mechanical design of the spring-damper
systems for the front and rear of the car will be discussed in chapters 3 and 4 respectively.

1
Paul van den Bos Working principle

2 The suspension system

Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, dampers and linkages that connect
the body of a vehicle to its wheels. This system serves a dual purpose: optimizing the
vehicles handling, and keeping the occupants comfortable. In case of a race car, the
latter is off course insignificant. The only goal of a race car is maintaining the maximum
achievable acceleration in the appropriate direction.

The working principle of a suspension system will be explained first. After that, a set of
requirements is formulated.

2.1 Working principle

Tyres are the most important parts of a race car. They have to transmit all drive, brake
and steering forces to the road through a very small contact patch. This makes it very
important for a car to keep the tyres in optimal contact with the road at all times. That
is the task of the suspension system. In case of a race car, the suspension system can be
designed specifically for that goal, at the cost of driver comfort.
A schematic representation of a suspension system can be seen in figure 2.1. The wheel
and brake disc are connected to the upright by bearings. Carbon fibre rods with ball
joints on each end connect the upright to the chassis. One of these six rods (the inclined
one) is not mounted to the chassis, but to a rocker. If the wheel moves up with respect to
the vehicle body, the upright pulls on the rod, which in turn causes the rocker to rotate
about its pivot point. A spring-damper is connected to the bellcrank on one end, and to
the chassis on the other. So by rotating the rocker, the spring-damper is compressed.

Figure 2.1: Rear view of a vehicle suspension system.

The spring-damper system consists of two subsystems: the coil-over damper itself (see
figure 2.2, and the anti-roll system. The coil spring absorbs the energy from a bump by
compressing, and releases it again at an uncontrolled rate. The spring will continue to
bounce until all of the energy originally put into it is dissipated. Dampers are used to
control this energy dissipation. They slow down and reduce the amplitude of the wheel
motion by converting kinetic energy into heat.
The anti-roll system consists of a torsion bar with a lever on each end. If the movements
on each end of the bar are not exactly the same, it will be twisted. This results in a
reaction force.

2
Paul van den Bos Working principle

The main rocker connects the pull rod to the two subsystems. The geometry of this rocker
determines the movement of the spring-damper and the anti-roll bar as a result of the
movement of the pullrod.
Two operating conditions will be explained to show how the subsystems work to control
the movements of the suspension.

Bump situation.
If the car drives over a threshold, the left and right wheels will move up an equal
amount. This results in the same angular rotation of the left and right main rocker.
The spring-dampers are therefore actuated equally. Since left and right levers of the
anti-roll bar are rotated to the same angle in the same direction, it will not create
a reaction moment.

Cornering situation.
If the car drives through a corner, its body will roll to the outside of the bend. As
a result, the outer wheel moves up with respect to the chassis, and the inner wheel
will move down. This means the main rockers are rotated in opposite directions.
The load on the outside spring will become higher, while the inside spring will be
(partially) unloaded. The anti-roll bar will be twisted, which results in an opposing
moment that tries to keep the vehicle body level.

Spring-damper
Main rocker
zy Anti-roll bar
x
Bump Corner

Figure 2.2: Working principle of a spring-damper system.

3
Paul van den Bos Requirements

2.2 Requirements
To design the suspension system for the URE06, a set of requirements has to be formu-
lated. These can be split up in general requirements that apply to all parts designed for
URE, and demands that apply specifically to the suspension system.
The general requirements are:

1. High reliability.
2. Low weight.

3. Low center of gravity.

4. Low yaw inertia.
5. Low production costs. This includes both the prototype and series production of
1000 cars/year.

6. Must comply with FSAE rules [1].

The spring-damper systems specific requirements are:

7. The motion ratio (see equation 1) has to suit the chosen dampers.
8. The anti-roll system has to be adjustable. This can be used to control the over- and
understeer behavior of the car. The system has to be adjustable from 0.5k 2k.

9. Accessibility has to be such that settings can quickly be adjusted.

10. Friction (hysteresis) has to be kept low.
11. The system should be free of play.

12. Wheel displacement has to be measured with integrated sensors.

13. The required stiffness of the anti-roll bars and bump springs will be determined by
the designers of the new multilink suspension. An advanced vehicle model will be
used for this.
14. Minimum wheel travel is prescribed by rule B6.1.1 [1]:
B6.1.1 The car must be equipped with a fully operational suspension system with shock
absorbers, front and rear, with usable wheel travel of at least 50.8 mm (2 inches), 25.4
mm (1 inch) jounce and 25.4 mm (1 inch) rebound, with driver seated. The judges reserve
the right to disqualify cars which do not represent a serious attempt at an operational
suspension system or which demonstrate handling inappropriate for an autocross circuit.

15. Visibility is prescribed by rule B6.1.2 [1]:

B6.1.2 All suspension mounting points must be visible at Technical Inspection, either by
direct view or by removing any covers.

16. Ground clearance is prescribed by rule B6.2 [1]:

B6.2 The ground clearance must be sufficient to prevent any portion of the car (other than
tires) from touching the ground during track events, and with the driver aboard there must
be a minimum of 25.4 mm (1 inch) of static ground clearance under the complete car at
all times.

4
Paul van den Bos Front bump system

3 Front spring-damper system

The concept of the front spring-damper system of 2008-2009 seasons car, the URE05,
was quite nice. It is mounted on the underside of the car, with the anti-roll bar in front,
and the dampers behind the main rockers. This order results in a lower yaw inertia than
the other way around. The low mounting position is not only beneficial for the height of
the center of gravity, but also uses the otherwise wasted space beneath the drivers legs.
Since the monocoque of the URE06 will be roughly the same as that of the URE05, the
concept of the front suspension system can remain. The main points of attention are the
new multilink suspension and ground clearance. On the URE05, if the front suspension
bottoms out (maximum compression) the rotation sensor and damper hit te ground. This
will, off course, have to be prevented on the URE06.

3.1 Final design overview

The final design of the front spring-damper system can be seen in figure 3.1. The right
part of the figure shows the names of the points that are used in a Simulink model. The
corresponding coordinates can be found in appendix A. The working drawings have been
incorporated in appendix C. The bump system consists of points 1 - 4. The anti-roll
system includes points 5 - 7.

Figure 3.1: Final design of the front spring-damper system.

The various parts of the design will be explained in this chapter; the bump system first,
and the anti-roll system afterwards.

3.2 Front bump system

The bump system includes the pull-rod, main rocker, spring and damper. The pull-rod
is attached to the upright and the main rocker. The main rocker has a pivot point on
the monocoque. The coil-over damper is attached to the main rocker on one end, and
to the chassis with the other. If the car drives over a bump, the wheel and upright are
pushed up, causing the pull-rod to rotate the rocker. The rotation of the rocker results
in compression of the spring-damper.

5
Paul van den Bos Front bump system

3.2.1 Bump motion ratio

The coil-over dampers need to be compressed and extended in a certain velocity range
to work properly. The velocity of the damper is of course dependent on the (vertical)
velocity of the wheel, and the suspension system. The ratio between damper travel and
wheel travel is called the motion ratio.
xdamper
M Rbump = [] (1)
xwheel
Due to the kinematics of the suspension system, the relation between wheel travel and
damper travel is highly non-linear. To analyse the kinematics of the system, a Simulink
model is used. This model allows the user to simulate steering, wheel bump and body
roll. The wheels are moved 30 mm up and down during a wheel bump simulation. The
resulting motion ratio lies well within a 0.5 1% margin as can be seen in figure 3.2.

Motion ratio vs wheel travel

0.52
MRbump
0.515 0.5 1%
0.51
Motion ratio bump []

0.505

0.5

0.495

0.49

0.485

0.48
30 20 10 0 10 20 30
Vertical wheel travel [mm]

Figure 3.2: Motion ratio versus vertical wheel travel of the front bump system.

3.2.2 Dampers

Because of good experiences, low weight and compact design, KONI 2612 series coil-over
dampers are chosen. These shock-absorbers can be mounted in any desired orientation,
because they are pressurized with nitrogen gas to avoid cavitation. To achieve the right
damper velocities, a motion ratio of M R = 0.5 is needed. FSAE rules [1] require a
minimum wheel stroke of 25.4 mm. The minimum stroke of the 2612 series dampers is
29 mm [2]. The front and rear coil springs will be the same 61 N/mm Merwede springs
as those on the URE05.
The driver will be seated further back in the car in comparison to last year. In combination
with the new multilink suspension, this yields a far larger distance between the damper
mountings on the monocoque and the rocker than is needed for the shortest length of
damper. This space could of course be bridged with a large mounting bracket attached
to the monocoque. But if the length of the damper is increased by choosing a longer top
eye (see figure 3.3), the rocker can be adapted to eliminate a stress concentration and
increase the stiffness.

6
Paul van den Bos Front bump system

28.50 mm
z

Figure 3.3: Koni 2612 damper with the shortest top eye (top) and a longer top eye (bottom).
The one with the shortest top eye will be used in the rear suspension system of the
car, the longer one in the front.

3.2.3 Main rocker

The main rocker will be a sandwich of two laser-cut aluminium sheets. This gives a
construction that is stiff for in-plane forces, but is a lot weaker for out-of-plane forces
that try to bend it. To assure that the rocker is loaded the optimal way, al forces will
have to act in the same plane, called the work plane. This can be achieved by placing the
centre line of the connection rod (pull rod), damper and anti-roll bar connection rod in
the same plane, in neutral position of the wheels.
To construct the work plane, a reference plane is created through the pull rod and an
arbitrary point (the origin). The work plane is also created through the pull rod, but at an
angle to the reference plane. By varying the angle, the orientation of the spring-damper
system can be altered. The angle is set such that the dampers lie in a horizontal plane
to minimize packaging volume, height of the centre of gravity and the risk of hitting the
ground if the suspension bottoms out.
Unlike the URE05, the connection points on the main rocker are all connected via straight
lines, as can be seen in figure 3.4. This way, there is no stress concentration and reduction
in stiffness like there is in the kink of the URE05 rocker. Furthermore, flaps are added to
the sides of the rocker. These flaps are bend and welded together to create a semi closed
box with a higher out-of-plane stiffness than a pure sandwich construction.

5
3 5
3
1
4 4
Flaps
1 1: rotation sensor mount
2: damper
Kink 3: pull-rod
4: rotation axis
2 2 5: anti-roll bar connection rod

Figure 3.4: Main front rocker of the URE05 (left) and URE06 (right). The kink in the URE05
rocker causes a stress concentration and stiffness reduction. The flaps on the
URE06 rocker are welded together to create a semi closed box.

7
Paul van den Bos Front bump system

Figure 3.5 shows an exploded view of the front main rocker assembly. The rocker rotation
axle and insert will be glued and bolted to the carbon fibre monocoque. The axle runs
through the monocoque wall to ensure that the forces are transferred to both layers of the
carbon fibre sandwich and increase the bending stiffness of the axle. The two plates of
the main rocker will be laser-cut out of a 3 mm thick aluminium sheet. They are held in
place on the bearing holder by two C-clips. The bearing holder contains two deep-groove
bearings directly under the rocker plates. A spacer between the inner rings of the bearings
prevents an axial load due to tightening of the nut. FSAE rules state that C-clips may
not be used as positive locking mechanisms in the bump suspension system [1]. The
washer between the nut and the bearing is therefore enlarged to act as a positive locking
mechanism. The rotation sensor is fixed to the rocker rotation axle with a grub screw,
and to the main rocker by a bracket and a bolt that runs through two spacers. A section
view of the main rocker can be seen in figure 3.6.

Inser t
Rocker
C-clip
Bearing

rotatio
Main r

r
Bearing

otation
Bearing
Bearing

n axle
C-clip
Washer

ocker
Nut
Sensor
Rotatio

a
holder

xle
spacer
bracket
n
sensor

Rocker
Bracke

s
pacer
t space
r

Figure 3.5: Exploded view of the front main rocker assembly.

3.2.4 Wheel travel sensor

Data logging is a very helpful tool to reach a good setup for a race car and to train the
drivers. One of the signals that are logged is wheel and damper travel. This will be pro-
vided by a Penny & Giles SRH280 contactless rotary sensor with a D style shaft [3]. This
sensor has been specially developed for the extreme conditions encountered in motorsport,
such as vibration, dirt and moisture.
In order to make sure that the sensor does not get damaged when the front suspension is
in maximum compression, the rocker rotation axle, where the sensors shaft is mounted
to, is shortened. In combination with the orientation of the rocker plane, this ensures

8
Paul van den Bos Front anti-roll system

that the sensor is no longer the lowest part of the car. The sensor mounting bracket
that connects the sensor to the rocker is stiffened by making it a triangle instead of a
T-shape. An extra spacer is added in between the rocker sandwich which greatly increases
the bending stiffness of the sensor mounting. These adjustments allow for more accurate
measurements, because signal noise due to flexing of the sensor mount is reduced.

Rotation sensor
Grub screw hole
Sensor bracket
Rocker rotation axis
Bracket spacers

Figure 3.6: Front rocker top and section view showing the wheel travel sensor mounting.

3.3 Front anti-roll system

If a car drives through a corner, its body will roll towards the outside of the bend. This
is not only uncomfortable for the occupants, it is far from ideal with respect to vehicle
dynamics. One could choose to use stiffer bump springs, but that would result in a harsh
ride and a loss of traction over bumps. To decouple bump and roll stiffness, an anti-roll
system is used which adds roll stiffness without altering the bump stiffness.
This system consists of a solid torsion bar with splines on each end. Splined bushes
with levers welded to them are slid over the splines. These anti-roll rockers are axially
secured by C-clips. Needle bearings hold the anti-roll bar (ARB) radially in place in the
monocoque. Teflon spacers prevent the anti-roll rockers from touching the bearing holder
and monocoque and axially lock the ARB. The anti-roll rockers are connected to the main
rockers via carbon fiber rods with aluminium inserts glued to them, the same concept
that is used for the connection rods of the multilink wheel suspension. Figure 3.7 shows
an exploded view of the front anti-roll assembly.

9
Paul van den Bos Front anti-roll system

Ball joint
An
I ti-r
Insert Be Need nner oll
bar
R Tef arin le rin
Sp ock lon g h bea g
Ro line er s old rin
cke bu plat pacer er g
rp sh e
late
Carbon rod

Insert
C-clip Nut
z Washer
Washer Conespacer part1
y Bolt Ball joint
x Conespacer part 2

Figure 3.7: Exploded view of the front anti-roll assembly.

3.3.1 Stiffness of the anti-roll bar

Vehicle dynamics simulations with an advanced Simulink model show that the stiff-
ness of the front anti-roll bar has to be such that the vehicle feels a roll-stiffness of
kvehicle,f ront = 118.000 N m/rad. The stiffness of the ARB depends on the roll motion
ratio, which is defined as the ratio between the chassis roll angle and anti-roll bar twist.
ARB twist
M Rroll = [] (2)
body roll angle
The Simulink model mentioned in section 3.2.1 can be used to determine the roll motion
ratio of the system. If the default setting (fifth hole from full stiff) of the anti-roll rockers
is used, the roll motion ratio is M Rroll = 10.7. This results in a required anti-roll bar
stiffness of:
kveh,f r
kARB = 2 1000 N m/rad (3)
M Rroll

Using the equations for torsion of a solid shaft [4], the required diameter of the ARB can
be calculated, see equations 4 and 5.
GI

kARB =

L



r
4 E d4

4 64(1 + )L kARB

I = d kARB = d= (4)
32
64(1 + )L E


E


G =



2(1 + )

Where G is the shear modulus, E is the modulus of elasticity and is the contraction
coefficient of the material. The torsion length is L, d is the diameter of the torsion-bar.
The ARB will be made of 34CrNiMo6+QT.

10
Paul van den Bos Front anti-roll system

This results in:

r
4 64(1 + )L kARB
d =

E



= 0.3 []

d = 13.4 mm (5)
L = 0.238 [m]

kARB = 1000 [N m/rad]




E = 200 109 [P a]

3.3.2 Stress in the anti-roll bar

The Von Mises yield criterion [5] states that

y
max = (6)
3
Since y,34CrN iM o6+QT = 1000 M P a [6], max,34CrN iM o6 = 575 M P a.
The maximum shear stress in a shaft is given by:

T d

=

2I




4

I = d
16T
32 = = 400 M P a (7)

d3



T = 190 [N m]



d = 13.4 [mm]

Therefore the safety factor of the front anti-roll bar is SF = 1.4.

3.3.3 Spline connection

The anti-roll rockers transfer torque to the ARB via splines. Because the diameter and
length of the splines of the front and rear sway bar are the same, but the applied torque
is much higher in the front, it is sufficient to check only the front spline connection.
The maximum shear stress in the spline connection will be at its inner diameter. This
can be calculated using equation 8, where r is de inner radius, L is the length of the spline
and T is the applied torque.
F
=
A

T

A = 2rL =


2 r 2 L

T

F =
= 55 M P a (8)
r 3

r = 5 10 [m]


L = 22 103 [m]





T = 190 [N m]

The spline bushings will be made of steel-37, which has a yield strength of 225 M P a [6],
so the maximum allowable shear stress is:
yield
max,st37 = = 130 M P a (9)
3
This gives a safety factor for the spline connection of SF = 2.4

11
Paul van den Bos Final design overview

4 Rear spring-damper system

Unlike the front, the rear of the URE06 will be completely different than that of the
URE05. The main motivations to change the rear are yaw inertia and the total vehicle
mass. To achieve this, the rear bulkhead will be placed between the engine and the
differential instead of behind the differential. Therefore, the rear suspension system of
the URE05, which was mounted on the bulkhead, can not be used for the URE06.

4.1 Final design overview

The final design of the rear spring-damper system can be seen in figure 4.1. The right part
shows the names of the points that are used in the Simulink model. The corresponding
coordinates can be found in appendix B. The working drawings have been incorporated
in appendix C. The bump system consists of points 1 - 4. The anti-roll system includes
points 5 - 7.

Figure 4.1: Final design of the rear spring-damper system.

The various parts of the design will be explained in this chapter; the bump system first,
and the anti-roll system afterwards.

12
Paul van den Bos Rear bump system

4.2 Rear bump system

4.2.1 Pushrod versus pullrod

One of the most important choices to be made when deciding on a suspension concept
is between pushrod and pullrod configuration. A schematic bump suspension system is
visible in figure 4.2. It shows a rear view of a left wheel and its upright, a vehicle body
and the suspension in between.
As can be seen in figure 4.2(a), a pullrod is mounted on or near the upper wishbone and
runs down to a bellcrank near the bottom of the chassis. The orientation of this rocker can
be adjusted to mount the damper vertical as in the figure, or horizontally in x-direction
as used for the front suspension system. Other orientations are off course possible, but
these are the two most common ones. The main advantage of a horizontally mounted
damper is height of the centre of gravity. Secondly, a pullrod is in tension, so it can be
lighter than an equivalent pushrod that might fail due to buckling.

F2
F3

F3 z
F2 y

a b
F F
Figure 4.2: Rear view of two different suspension configurations: pullrod (a) and pushrod (b).

The alternative is a pushrod system, which can be seen in figure 4.2(b). With this concept,
a pushrod is mounted near or on the lower A-arm and runs up to a rocker near the top of
the rear frame. The damper can be mounted vertically as in the figure, or in a different
orientation.
Mounting the pull- or pushrod on the upper or lower A-arm will introduce a bending
moment on it. The wheel suspension on the URE06 will be full multilink on both front
and rear. It will be constructed of carbon fiber rods with glued aluminium inserts that
hold the rod ends. These rods are very strong and stiff in compression and tension, but
can not endure bending. The connection rod will therefore be mounted directly on the
upright.
During cornering, the outside upper A-arm is in tension, while the lower one is in com-
pression. This compressive force is 1.8 times higher than the lateral tyre force, because
of the leverage between the road surface and the upper and lower wishbone. To make
matters worse, the lower connection rods of the multilink system are longer than the
upper ones to achieve the desired camber gain, which makes them even more prone to
fail. Therefore, the toe link is placed on the same level as the lower connection rods to
reduce the load per rod. This load per rod can be reduced even further by choosing a
pushrod configuration.
When a car drives over a bump, the upper connection rods will be loaded with a com-
pressive force, and the lower ones with a tensile force. In case of a pullrod system, the

13
Paul van den Bos Rear bump system

upper connection rods gain an extra compressive load due to the pullrod. In case of a
pushrod configuration, the lower connection rods gain an extra tensile load.
These two cases can off course also be combined: a car hits a bump while cornering.
Then, the upper connection rods, which are under tension from the lateral tyre forces,
are (partially) unloaded, or even change to a push rod. The compressive cornering force
on the lower ones will also be reduced or switched to tensile.
If the orientation of a pushrod is chosen such that the centre line (force line) goes through
the tyre contact patch in both x and y (as in figure 4.3), no moments are created that
try to change camber and caster angles.

z z

x y

Figure 4.3: Left and rear view of a wheel and its suspension showing that the force line runs
through the tyre contact patch.

Combining all of the above, the pushrod configuration with the centre line of the con-
nection rod through the tyre contact patch is chosen (see figure 4.3). This results in a
suspension system that makes use of the toe link that is mounted level with the lower
A-arm and thus creates better loading conditions for the connection rods.

4.2.2 Main rocker

The pushrod is connected to the main rocker. The coil-over damper is mounted to this
bellcrank on one end, and to the rear frame on the other. The rocker rotates in a bearing
holder which is mounted on top of the bulkhead. The rocker is made up of two laser-cut
aluminium sheets with a thickness of 3 mm, just like the front main rocker. Parts that
have been used on the front will also be used on the rear as much as possible, for costs,
ease of manufacturing, assembly and maintenance and to reduce the amount of spare
parts that have to be produced and brought along to test days and events.
The work plane of the rear main rocker is created through the pullrod connection point
on the upright, and the centre line of the vertical bulkhead tube.
Figure 4.4 shows an exploded view of the rear main rocker assembly. The rocker rotation
axle clamps the inner rings of the deep groove ball bearings, two thin spacers, the main
rocker sandwich plates and a bush in between them.
The axle itself has a large outer diameter, with a hole drilled along its axis. This gives
an axle with a much higher bending stiffness than a solid one with the same mass. The
hole is also used to mount the shaft of the wheel travel sensor with a grub screw. This
grub screw hole is drilled in one of the two flat faces of the axle head, which are used to
hold the axle with a standard 15 mm open-ended wrench during tightening of the nylock
nut. The same sensor is used as the one on the front.

14
Paul van den Bos Rear bump system

Rocker s acer
pacer
ut

xle
Nylock n

sp

Bearing lder
spacer

otation a
Bearing
Bearing

Bearing er
ho

Sensor b acer
Main roc

racket

sensor
Bearing

Rocker r

p
Bracket s

Rotation
Figure 4.4: Exploded view of the rear main rocker assembly.

The bearings are placed far apart in the bearing holder instead of in the same plane as
the rocker plates, to ensure bending stiffness when the rocker is loaded out-of-plane. This
also results in a lower (and thus stiffer and lighter) bearing holder, since the height of the
material around the bearings can be less.
The bearing holder will be mounted on the rear frame by a M12 allen bolt. The bearing
holder can be rotated about its vertical axis for proper alignment with the connection rod.
After the bolt has been tightened, the rotation is blocked by friction. If the orientation
of the bearing holder would be fixed by, for example, a ridge, the orientation of the
vertical bulkhead tube after welding would be critical to avoid unnecessary out-of-plane
forces on the rocker. The bottom of the bearing holder is hollowed out to ensure that
the pressure that is provided by the bolt is applied to the greatest diameter for optimal
bending stiffness. A small hole is drilled through the bearing holder for safety wiring of
the allen bolt.

15
Paul van den Bos Rear bump system

Motion ratio vs wheel travel

0.52
MRbump
0.515 0.5 1%
0.51

Motion ratio bump []

0.505

0.5

0.495

0.49

0.485

0.48
30 20 10 0 10 20 30
Vertical wheel travel [mm]

Figure 4.5: Motion ratio versus wheel travel of the rear bump system.

The Simulink model that is mentioned in section 3.2.1 is also used to determine the motion
ratio of the rear bump system. The rear dampers require a motion ratio of 0.5 for optimal
performance, just like the ones in the front of the car. Figure 4.5 shows that it lies well
within a 0.5 1% margin.
Dynamic simulations of the wheel suspension system with an advanced Simulink vehicle
dynamics model show that the maximum force in the pushrod is Fpushrod = 3600 N .
Solving the momentum rule about the rocker rotation axis, and force equilibrium in two
directions gives the forces which the bearing holder has to exercise on the rocker (see
figure 4.6). To do a finite element method (FEM) analysis of the bearing holder, the
maximum of the forces is taken (2700 N), and applied as a bearing load in both y and
z direction, on both the bearings. This gives a very high safety factor on the load case.
Figure 4.7 shows that the maximum stress is 150 M P a. Parts with stresses below 50 M P a
are colored black.

Fpushrod=3600 N

Fdamper= 5200 N

Fy= 2000 N

Fz= 2700 N

Figure 4.6: Forces acting on the rear main

Figure 4.7: FEM analysis of the rear bearing
rocker.
holder.

4.2.3 Wheel travel sensor

Travel of the rear wheels will be measured with the same Penny & Giles SRH280 contact-
less rotary sensor as the ones used on the front of the car. Unlike the front suspension

16
Paul van den Bos Rear bump system

system, the shaft of the sensor of the rear main rocker will be connected to the moving
part of the rocker, while the sensor housing remains stationary with respect to the bearing
housing (see figure 4.8).

Rotation sensor
Grub screw hole
Rocker rotation axis
Sensor bracket
Bracket spacer

Figure 4.8: Rear and section view of the rear main rocker assembly.

17
Paul van den Bos Rear anti-roll system

4.3 Rear anti-roll system

The rear anti-roll system will make use of a solid torsion bar with levers on each end, just
like the front of the car. The vehicle roll stiffness has to be adjustable from 1/2 kroll,vehicle
to 2 kroll,vehicle , to be able to adjust the under- and oversteer behavior of the car over
a wide enough range.
p The anti-roll system will therefore have to be adjustable from
1/2 kroll,vehicle to 2 kroll,vehicle , to account for the roll motion ratio. Several
concepts have been examined, which will be briefly discussed next.

4.3.1 Placement of the anti-roll system

At first glance, when looking at figure 4.9, it seems as there are several possibilities to place
the rear anti-roll system. If the ARB would run through the engine mounting (number 1
in the figure), with the levers pointing backwards, the connection rod for the ARB would
collide with the wheel suspension connection rods. Pointing the levers forward would
either result in very large out-of-plane forces on the main rocker, or the work plane of the
main rocker would have to be under an extreme angle.

Figure 4.9: Left view of the engine, rear frame, differential assembly and bump suspension
system. The numbers 1-7 indicate possible anti-roll bar locations.

Number 2 on the figure points at the lower horizontal tube of the rear bulkhead. If
the torsion bar would run through this tube, no extra brackets or supports would be
necessary. The tube itself could be used as a bearing holder, resulting in a very light
anti-roll system. Pointing the levers to the rear of the car would give the same problems

18
Paul van den Bos Rear anti-roll system

as concept number 1. Pointing them to the front would be possible, but it would be
hard to make it such that is has the correct adjusting range, because the levers would be
very short. Furthermore, the levers would not be above the ground clearance plane at
the extremity of their stroke. The ground clearance plane lies 30 mm above the ground,
which is the underside of the tubes of the rear frame.
To enable mounting of the ARB at position 3, the lower tube of the toe-link subframe
would have to be reinforced to be able to sustain the vertical (bending) load.
Concept number 4 does a better job in that respect, because the ARB could be placed
closer to the corner of the triangle. It would however be impossible to adjust the roll
stiffness by means of a varying length lever, because it would have to be very long to get
the required adjustability range. The connection rod would collide with the A-arms in
the stiffest settings, and have a large angle with respect to the work plane of the main
rocker in the softest settings.
The fifth possibility would also result in large bending forces on the inclined tube. Even
though it is a much stiffer tube because of its greater diameter, it would still not be a
decent concept because the tube gets loaded on its weakest point: in the middle between
the connection points. It would also result in a high centre of gravity of the anti-roll
system.
The differential and sprocket (grey disc) assembly can be moved back and forth to adjust
chain slack. In the figure, it is set at its most rearward position. Placing the ARB at
position 6 would mean that either the chain or the sprocket runs through it if they are
moved forward.
Number 7 does not have any of the afore-mentioned disadvantages. The radius of the cut-
away in the differential mount is just large enough to run the torsion bar through. The
offset to the bulkhead is needed to mount bearing supports. The levers will be pointing
to the front of the car. The ARB can be placed far enough forward to make sure there
are no collisions with the lower multilink connection rod in the stiffest setting. The levers
can be kept short to prevent a very big angle with respect to the plane of the main rocker
in the softest setting, while still providing a large enough range of stiffness settings.

19
Paul van den Bos Rear anti-roll system

4.3.2 Bearing tubes

The rear bulkhead is not a rectangle; the lower horizontal tube is shorter than the top
one. There are two conceivable options to mount the sway bar to the bulkhead: mounting
the bearings on the bulkhead and making the torsion bar slightly longer than the width
of the bulkhead, to minimize the bending moment about the x-axis on it (figure 4.10(r)).
Option number two is to use a longer torsion bar, and creating some sort of support
that makes it possible to mount the bearings right next to the levers of the torsion bar
(figure 4.10(l)). This support will bear the bending load, so the anti-roll bar is only used
for torsion.
In neutral position of the wheels, the angle between the ARB-connection rod and the
xz-plane is about 22 in case of the short ARB. That is, the force vector of the connection
rod has a lateral component (y-direction) of 0.37 Frod , resulting in a big axial load, and a
large moment about the vertical axis through the end of the torsion bar. The levers, the
torsion bar and/or the torsion bar mounting could be constructed in such a way that they
are stiff enough to withstand this moment, but they would still be loaded in a direction
that is not necessary to begin with. A force parallel to the centre line of the sway bar
does not contribute to the torsion of that bar along the same line.

Figure 4.10: Rear view of the bulkhead and two options for the torsion bar: short (right), with
the connection rod under a large angle, or long (left), with the connection rod
under a small angle but with a larger bending length of the anti-roll bar.

By placing the end of the sway bar more outward, and with it the anti-roll connection rod
more upright, the lateral component of the force can be greatly diminished. Decreasing
the angle between the the pullrod and a vertical plane to 8 will reduce the lateral load to
0.14 Frod . The greater extension to the sides would increase the bending moment about
the longitudinal axis if the bearings were still mounted directly to the bulkhead. Bending
reduces the roll stiffness of the vehicle.

20
Paul van den Bos Rear anti-roll system

Placing the bearings as close to the levers as possible reduces bending of the torsion bar.
The bearings will be mounted inside a tube of large diameter for optimal bending stiffness.
The bearing-tubes are connected to the rear frame by two plates; one at the standing tube
of the bulkhead, and one that also holds the differential supports (see figure 4.11). The
outer diameter of the tubes is not constant, but is larger from the differential support to
5 mm left of the outer support plate, following the momentum line. From there on out,
the outer diameter is decreased from 36 mm to 32 mm by means of a taper and an edge
blend to prevent the notch effect. This smaller diameter is needed to avoid collisions with
the multi-link connection rod, as can be seen in figure 4.12. Together with the leverage
of the connection rod, this provides enough clearance. The decrease in inner diameter is
placed to the right of the outer support plate. This local increase in wall-thickness of the
tube at the outer support plate reduces stress concentrations.

Figure 4.11: Rear bulkhead (blue), suspension system (grey) with bearing tubes (red) and its
mounting plates (green).

The bearing tubes have been checked with a finite element method analysis. This included
the bearing tubes and the support plates. Translation of the plates was fixed along the
welding lines. The dynamic vehicle simulations show that the maximum torque in the
anti-roll bar is about 100 N m. The length of the lever is 37 mm, which gives a vertical
force of 2700 N at the end of the tube. The result can be seen in figure 4.13.

4.3.3 Stiffness of the anti-roll bar

The vehicle dynamics simulations mentioned in section 3.3.1 that have been used to
determine the required front and rear vehicle roll stiffness show that the rear vehicle roll-
stiffness due to the anti-roll bar will have to be kvehicle,rear = 66.500 N m/rad. In the
default setting (fifth hole from full stiff) of the anti-roll rockers, the roll motion ratio is
M Rroll = 12.1. This results in a required anti-roll bar stiffness of:
kveh,rear
kARB = 2 450 N m/rad (10)
M Rroll

Using the equations for torsion of a solid shaft again (see equation 4), the required diam-

21
Paul van den Bos Rear anti-roll system

Bearing tube
Needle bearing
Splines
Torsion bar
Teflon spacer

155.00
89.00
Bearing tube
Torsion bar

Outer support plate

z
Inner support plate
32.00
28.00
36.00
32.00

Figure 4.12: Several views of the left part of the rear anti-roll assembly.

Figure 4.13: FEM analysis results of the bearing tubes.

22
Paul van den Bos Rear anti-roll system

eter of the ARB can be calculated, see equation 11. The rear anti-roll bar will also be
made out of 34CrNiMo6+QT, just like the front ARB. This results in:

r
4 64(1 + )L kARB
d =

E



= 0.3 []

d = 12.6 mm (11)
L = 0.419 [m]

kARB = 450 [N m/rad]




E = 200 109 [P a]

4.3.4 Stress in the anti-roll bar

As shown in section 3.3.2, the maximum allowable shear stress for 34CrNiMo6+QT is
max,34CrN iM o6 = 575 M P a.
The maximum shear stress in the rear anti-roll bar is given by:

T d

=

2I




4

I = d
16T
32 = = 240 M P a (12)

d3



T = 95 [N m]



d = 12.6 [mm]

So the safety factor of the rear anti-roll bar is SF = 2.4.

23
Paul van den Bos Conclusion and recommendations

5 Conclusion and recommendations

The subject of this report is the design of a spring-damper system for the next car that
will be used by University Racing Eindhoven to race in the Formula Student competition:
the URE06.
The requirements have been determined in chapter 2. Subsequently, the kinematics of the
front and rear spring-damper systems have been set. This resulted in a set of coordinates.
The individual parts have been constructed next, taking the requirements into account.
Components such as the anti-roll bars have been analyzed by hand calculations, while
other parts have been optimized using FEM analysis.
Several recommendations can be made:

The forces in the multilink connection rods that resulted from dynamic simulations
could be verified with the use of strain gauges. This might show weak spots of the
system, or the opposite: too high safety factors which mean mass could be saved.

The suspension system contains a lot of different spacers. Reducing the number of
spacers could save costs and production time.
Advantages and disadvantages of blade-style anti-roll levers could be investigated.

24
Paul van den Bos REFERENCES

References
[1] http://www.formulastudent.com/universities/Rules.htm
[2] http://www.koni.com/fileadmin/user_upload/business_units/racing/
downloads/Technical_Manual_2612_v1.2.1.pdf

[3] http://www.pennyandgiles.com/script_cms/force_file_download.php?
fileID=267
[4] P.C.J.N. Rosielle, E.A.G. Reker, (March 2004) Constructieprincipes 1 Lecture notes
4007 Technische Universiteit Eindhoven.

[5] R. von Mises, (1913). Mechanik der Festen Korper im plastisch deformablen Zustand.
G
ottin. Nachr. Math. Phys., vol. 1, pp. 582592.
[6] http://www.mcb.nl/files/File/pdf/MCB_Boek_CD_1.2.pdf

25
Paul van den Bos Front spring-damper system coordinates

A Front spring-damper system coordinates

Figure A.1: Final design of the front spring-damper system.

The coordinates corresponding to the names in figure A.1 are given below. The format
is: name = [x y z], with all values in meters. The given coordinates are for the front left
wheel.
d.front.sb.p1 = [1.4018 0.0588 0.0740]
d.front.sb.p2 = [1.6397 0.0641 0.0740]
d.front.sb.p3 = [1.6000 0.1290 0.1100]
d.front.sb.p4 = [1.6385 0.1176 0.1033]
d.front.sb.p5 = [1.6469 0.1475 0.1195]
d.front.sb.p6 = [1.8069 0.1462 0.1169]
d.front.sb.p7 = [1.8062 0.1462 0.1489]

26
Paul van den Bos Rear spring-damper system coordinates

B Rear spring-damper system coordinates

Figure B.1: Final design of the rear spring-damper system.

The coordinates corresponding to the names in figure B.1 are given below. The format
is: name = [x y z], with all values in meters. The given coordinates are for the rear left
wheel.
d.rear.sb.p1 = [0.2126 0.0263 0.3843 ]
d.rear.sb.p2 = [0.1736 0.2321 0.3866 ]
d.rear.sb.p3 = [0.1582 0.3072 0.3829 ]
d.rear.sb.p4 = [0.1566 0.2296 0.3198 ]
d.rear.sb.p5 = [0.1436 0.2752 0.3038 ]
d.rear.sb.p6 = [0.1088 0.2410 0.0777 ]
d.rear.sb.p7 = [0.0765 0.2410 0.0958 ]

27
Paul van den Bos Working drawings of the front and rear spring-damper system

C Working drawings of the front and rear spring-damper

system

28