The outcome of the assignment is to estimate the natural frequency of the

car through measurement of the eective mass and eective stiness.

The system is considered to be a simple spring-mass system where the nec-

essary parameters are lumped together. The mass is assumed as a point mass
for the present study.

1 Calculation of Mass
Total mass of the vehicle: 1195 kg
Estimated volume of diesel lled: 28.8 litres
Mass of diesel can be calculated as
Mdiesel = ρ × V
= 840 × 28.8 × 10−3 )
≈ 24 kg
Mass of the person: 95 kg
Therefore, total mass of the system = 1195 + 24 + 95 = 1314 kg

2 Calculation of Stiness
The four suspension springs in the car is in parallel and assuming the same
stiness constant for all, the stiness constant for one spring can be estimated
as follows.

The displacement of each spring is shown in Fig. 1. Using a measuring tape,

the displacements of the car body at each of the tyre location was measured in
the vertical direction. Hence, through force balance, we can write it as:
k(d1 + d2 + d3 + d4 ) = ∆F
=⇒ k(0.006 + 0.007 + 0.01 + 0.013) = 95 × g
95 × 9.81
=⇒ k =
0.036
= 25.89 kN/m

1
Figure 1: Approximate measurements of the displacements at the tyre locations

Therefore, the total stiness of the car will be

kef f = 4k
≈ 104 kN/m

3 Calculation of Natural Frequency

Natural frequency of the system can be calculated as
r
k
ωn =
m
r
104 × 1000
=
1314
= 8.9 rad/s
ωn
F requency, f =
2π
12
=
2×π
= 1.4 Hz

Therefore, the natural frequency of the car on assumption of lumped mass and
eective stiness of all elements is 1.4 Hz. This is quite comparable to literature
mentioned values [1].

References
1. https://www.drtuned.com/tech-ramblings/2017/10/2/spring-rates-suspension-
frequencies