C o v e r S t o r y SUSPENSION SYSTEMS

EFFICIENT CONCEPT DESIGN OF

TWIST BEAM REAR AXLES
Twist beam rear axles are lighter and less expensive than multi-link suspensions but can’t be developed easily.
Thus, the University of Siegen developed a new analytical method for concept design, with which stiffness and
kinematics of twist beam axles can be evaluated within a few seconds.

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24 www.autotechreview.com
 A ut h o r s
PROF. DR.-ING. XIANGFAN FANG
is Director of the Institute of
Automotive Lightweight Design at
the University of Siegen (Germany).
DIPL.-ING. KANLUN TAN
is Research Associate of
the Institute of Automotive
Lightweight Design at the
University of Siegen (Germany).
autotechreview Fe b r u ar y 2 015
MOTIVATION AND STATEMENT OF
THE PROBLEM
With cost and weight advantages, the
twist beam rear axle has been increas-
ingly used for vehicles in low and middle
classes. However, in comparison to multi-
link suspensions, more development
efforts are required to improve the stiff-
ness under lateral force and the axle kine-
matics during cornering, which can cause
over-steering behaviours. The develop-
ments of the last decade led to significant
improvements in axle stiffness and kine-
matics, so that an increasing use of the
twist beam axle can be observed cur-
rently, also in higher class vehicles.
The main requirements for the concept
design of the twist beam rear axle include,
(a) the lateral, toe and camber stiffness,
as mentioned above; and (b) the kine-
matic toe and camber. The latter show the
changes of the toe and camber angles
during parallel and opposite wheel trav-
els. The lateral stiffness is defined as the
ratio of an applied lateral force at the
wheel contact point to the displacement
of the point in the vehicle transverse
direction. Similarly, the toe and camber
stiffness are the ratios of the same lateral
force to the changes of the toe and cam-
ber angles.
As can be seen in 1, all requirements
are simultaneously influenced by many
factors and there is also a strong depend-
ence between the requirements. The most
important influencing factors are the hard
points, the three-dimensional form of the
components and the sectional properties.
These influencing factors are also the vari-
ables, which must be defined during the
concept design. This means that the axle
stiffness and kinematics are mainly deter-
mined by its basic concept. Other factors,
such as design details, do have influence
on the strength and durability of the axle;
however, they have only small influence
on the axle stiffness and kinematics and
will not be further considered in the cur-
rent investigation.
In addition to the illustration of the
complex interactions, ① also clearly
shows an enormous design potential. On
one hand, the large number of the varia-
bles can provide a large variety of concept
possibilities, while on the other hand, the
design and optimisation of the twist beam
axle become very difficult due to these
Vo lum e 4 | I s su e 2
complex interactions between the differ-
ent variables, since local improvements of
one requirement may have negative
effects on the others.
This fact is the main challenge for the
concept design of the twist beam axle.
According to the state-of-the-art technol-
ogy, the kinematics of the rigid axle and
the independent suspension are usually
calculated using multi-body simulation
(MBS) and then optimised with numeri-
cal optimisation tools. Compared to the
twist beam axle, in which especially the
cross member is designed relatively soft,
the components of the rigid axle and the
independent suspension are much stiffer
and can be considered as rigid bodies in
those simulations. This assumption can-
not be applied to the twist beam axle,
since the deformation of the axle compo-
nents, particularly the bending and twist-
ing of the cross member, determine the
properties of the axle kinematics and
must not be neglected.
For this reason, a highly detailed, para-
metric MBS model with deformable com-
ponents is required to enable the concept
design and optimisation of the twist beam
axle. The large number of optimisation
variables and the high complexity of flexi-
ble multi-body models require a huge
computing capacity and a very long com-
putation time. Therefore, this CAE optimi-
sation method is rarely being used in the
industrial practice for the twist beam axle.
The commonly used approach in the
development of the twist beam axle starts
usually with several “empirical” or on
benchmarking-based concepts. They are
at first roughly designed with CAD and
then converted into finite-element and
MBS models. A concept evaluation con-
cerning the stiffness and kinematics can
only be carried out after the simulations.
The best concept must be further
developed and optimised via many opti-
misation steps. For this reason, many
resources must be invested in the CAD
and CAE works before the concept eval-
uation. Furthermore, the quality of the
concepts is highly dependent on the
personal experiences of the engineers,
so that unsuitable concepts might be
followed and optimised for a long time
without having a good result at the end.
To solve these problems, a new method
for concept design was developed in the
work presented here. In this method, all
25
C o v e r S t o r y SUSPENSION SYSTEMS
Lateral stiffness Toe stiffness
Hard points
Three-dimensional
form of components
Kinematic toe
1 Complex interactions between the concept variables and requirements
Ul
(a)
RAS FS
Ul
(b)
RAS FS
(c)
2 Idealisation of the example axle as a beam model and the calculation of its bearing and node loads with the
statically determined constraints
the complex interactions in ① were
mathematically, purely analytically and
completely determined and imple-
mented into a software tool. Once the
concept variables are entered, the axle
stiffness and kinematics can be calcu-
lated with a good accuracy in a few sec-
onds. The CAD data and CAE calcula-
tion are not required at all.
26
Camber stiffness Other axle stiffnesses cross member with a high bending stiff-
ness but lower torsion stiffness. In the
example axle showed here, the cross
member has a hat profile cross section
Sectional properties Other factors with reinforcements at each of the two
transition areas to the side arms, which
have a nearly circular cross section.
Each component can be idealised as
Kinematic camber
Other kinematic five straight and homogeneous beams.
characteristics
This subdivision is sufficient enough to
represent the three-dimensional form of
the components. In order to describe the
strong variation of the cross sections of
Ur the axle components in reality, each beam
can be defined with a separate property.
For example, the cross member in the axle
is idealised to have a rectangular profile at
the ends, a hat profile in the central
region and a partially closed profile in the
transitional areas. To improve the accu-
racy of the model, extra beams can be
introduced; however, it causes a signifi-
RAS
cantly higher computation time.
Besides a cross member and two side
Ur arms, a twist beam axle usually has also
components to connect with spring
damper elements. Traditional spring
damper seats, such as the one shown in
②, are connected to the stiff side arms.
They can be nearly neglected in the ana-
lytical method because of their small
influence on the axle stiffness.
However, some modern spring-damper
RAS
seats connect the cross member with the
side arms at the same time, so that the
relatively weak cross member is signifi-
cantly reinforced. This leads to an
increase of the total axle stiffness.
Because of the complex geometry of the
seats, their implementation into the ana-
lytical method is difficult and can be con-
sidered as a further development perspec-
tive of the current method.
In the second step, all loads on the
nodes and bearings are calculated analyti-
cally. For this purpose, the axle is
mounted as a statically determined sys-
tem, which requires exactly six con-
straints for its freedom of movement, ②
NEW APPROACH OF ANALYSIS (b), ② (c). The two guide bearings, Ul
and Ur, are idealised as ball joints here,
The basic approach of the stiffness analy- where Ur can also move translational in
sis based on this new method can be the car’s y-direction. While the lateral
divided into four steps. In the first step, force acts on the left wheel contact point
the axle is idealised as a beam model, 2 with a short offset RASFS, the right wheel
(a). A twist beam axle usually consists of contact point RAS must have no move-
two side arms with high bending and tor- ment in the car z-direction. With these
sion stiffness, which are connected by a statically determined constraints, all
www.autotechreview.com
forces and moments acting on the bear-
ings and nodes can be calculated
analytically.
In reality, the two guide bearings are
not ideal ball joints but rubber bushings,
(a)
whose characteristics can also affect the
axle stiffness additionally. However,
because the effects of the rubber bushing
on the axle characteristic are often consid-
ered separately in the industrial practice,
the assumption here of idealised ball
joints can be considered as sufficient.
In the third step, the three-dimen-
sional and manifold deformations of
each beam are calculated analytically.
They consist of tension, compression and
bending deformations, as well as pure
torsion and warping torsion. The corre- (b)
sponding equations or systems of equa-
tions are developed in matrix form and
solved analytically.
To complete the stiffness analysis, the
individual beam deformations are assem-
bled in the fourth and last step and then
the total axle stiffness is determined. As
can be seen in 3 (a), the deformation
begins at the left side arm, while the
cross member moves only slightly with-
out deformation. Then the elastic defor-
mation of the cross member is added. (c)
This elastic deformation causes kine-
matic movements of the bearings. For
example, the side arms rotate inward,
but do not deform further, ③ (b). It can
be concluded that these kinematic move-
ments have large influences on the axle
stiffness and must be considered in the 3 Deformation of the example axle with lateral force
analytical calculation.
The theory applied in the axle kine-
matic analysis was developed by Beck/
Hertel/Schneeweiß [1] and Matschinsky Parallel wheel travel
[2]. It is based on the following assump- Ul Ur
Opp vel
osit
ew el tra
tions: during parallel wheel travels, the hee e whe
l tra
vel osit
wheels rotate around the line joining the Opp
two guide bearings; while in opposite
wheel travels, the rotational axis of the
SC
wheel travels goes through the guide
bearing and the shear centre (SC) of the
cross member profile, 4. Generally, the
analytical determinations of the shear
centre for the typical cross member pro- 4 Geometric relationship of axle kinematics of twist beam axles
files, such as C, U or hat profiles, are
possible. However, cross members with
more complex profiles are being used in It has to be mentioned here, that RESULTS OF THE
current vehicles. Therefore, further mod- the theoretical rotational axis for oppo- ANALYTICAL CALCULATIONS
ules for the shear centre calculation of site wheel travel is only an approxima-
such kind of more complex profiles is tion, which has a deviation from the Based on the analytical method, a soft-
now under development. real wheel movement. ware tool was developed, which requires

autotechreview Fe b r u ar y 2 015 Vo lum e 4 | I s su e 2 27

 C o v e r S t o r y SUSPENSION SYSTEMS

Lateral stiffness Toe stiffness Camber stiffness ment. 5 shows that the results of the two
methods for the same example axle are
[N/mm] [N/min] [N/min] well comparable.
The results of the kinematics analysis
Simulation 1562.50 302.25 224.49
show that the analytically calculated
Analytical method 1584.10 291.14 208.04 curves for the case of parallel wheel travel
are exactly the same in comparison to the
Deviation [%] 1.38 -3.68 -7.33
curves of simulated ones, 6 (top). For
5 Stiffnesses of the example axle opposite wheel travel, a slight deviation
can be observed because of the above
Axle kinematics during parallel wheel travel mentioned inaccuracy of the
Axle theory, during
kinematics ⑥ opposite wheel trav
80 80
(bottom). However, the result is still satis-
factory for the concept phase.
Toe angle of analytical calculation
60 60
Toe angle of MBS simulation
Camber angle of analytical calculation
40 40
CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
Wheel centre travel [mm]

Wheel centre travel [mm]

Camber angle of MBS simulation

20 20
With the presented analytical method, it
Design attitude
is possible to analytically evaluate a con-
Design attitude
0 0
cept of twist beam axles in terms of its
lateral stiffness and kinematics within a
-20 -20 seconds. In future developments, the
few
Toe angle of analytical method will be extended to enable the
-40 calculation -40
Toe angle of MBS simulation calculation of roll and longitudinal stiff-
Camber angle of analytical ness as well. The almost instantaneous
-60 calculation -60
computation times also enable the analyt-
Camber angle of MBS ical method as an ideal tool for optimising
simulation
-80 -80 concepts, since it can be combined
axle
-200 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 -200 -150 -100 -50 0
Toe and camber angle [min] easily and quickly with suitable mathe- Toe and camber angle [min
matical optimisation algorithms.
Axle kinematics during opposite wheel travel Through further development, it
80
should be possible that after the user
Toe angle of analytical calculation enters the desired requirements and con-
60
Toe angle of MBS simulation straints, such as package, into the soft-
Camber angle of analytical calculation ware, the suitable concepts can then be
40
determined quickly and automatically by
Wheel centre travel [mm]

Camber angle of MBS simulation

combining the current analytical method
20
with an appropriate optimisation algo-
Design attitude rithm. Thereafter, the concepts can be
0
transferred into CAD models and finalised
by detail optimisations using FEA and
-20
MBS. Using this analytical method, a
al
much faster and more cost-effective con-
-40
mulation cept development can be realised for a
ytical twist beam axle.
-60
S
REFERENCES
-80 [1] Beck, J.; Hertel, K.; Schneeweiß, M.: Die Kop-
150 -200 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150
pellenkerachse für frontgetriebene Personenwagen
Toe and camber angle [min]
– eine neue Entwicklung von Audi-NSU. In: ATZ
6 Axle kinematics of the example axle 76 (1974), No. 10, pp. 316–321
[2] Matschinsky, W.: Bestimmung mechanischer
Kenngrößen von Radaufhängungen. Hannover,
Universität, Dissertation, 1992
only the positions of all hard points and MBS programmes. The results were then
the basic profile cross sections as input to compared with those of the analytical
calculate the axle stiffness and kinemat- method. It was found that the deviations
ics. In order to validate the method accu- of stiffness of these axles were always less
racy, more than ten different axles were than 15 %. This result can be considered Read this article on
designed and calculated with FEA and as satisfactory for the concept develop- www.autotechreview.com

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