Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:241

En studie av luftfjädrade allhjulsdrivna lastbilar

Jacob Andersson
Fredrik Danielsson
Godkänt Examinator Handledare
2019-mån-dag Ulf Sellgren, KTH Ulf Sellgren, KTH
Uppdragsgivare Kontaktperson
Johan Nordkvist, Scania Maria Yngve, Scania

Sammanfattning
I nuläget erbjuder inte Scania luftfjädring för samtliga hjulaxlar på AWD lastbilar, vilket det
tycks finnas ett kundbehov av. Denna studie agerar som ett initialt steg till att uppfylla detta
kundbehov. Studien inkluderar inledningsvis en analys av vad konkurrenter erbjuder samt en
undersökning och utvärdering av Scanias nuvarande fjädringssystem. Utöver det, har en
kravspecifikation och en konceptgenerering för främre luftfjädring på AWD lastbilar
presenterats. Åtta stycken koncept genererades, varav två stycken valdes för vidare studie av
design, kraftanalys samt krängstyvhetsanalys. Slutsatserna var att det finns en marknad för
denna typ av konfiguration, dock skulle det behövas omfattande designarbete för att
implementera det.

Nyckelord: Allhjulsdrift, Dragbil, Framhjulsdrift, Lastbil, Luftfjädring

 Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2019:241

A Study of Air Suspended AWD Trucks

Jacob Andersson
Fredrik Danielsson
Approved Examiner Supervisor
2019-month-day Ulf Sellgren, KTH Ulf Sellgren, KTH
Commissioner Contact person
Johan Nordkvist, Scania Maria Yngve, Scania

Abstract
Currently, Scania is not offering full air suspended AWD trucks, which it seems to be a demand
for. This study acts as a first step to fulfill this demand. Including, a benchmarking of what
competitors offer as well as an investigation and an evaluation of Scania’s current suspension
system. Moreover, a requirement specification and a concept generation for a front air
suspension system on AWD trucks have been presented. Eight concept were generated, where
two were chosen for further study of design, force analysis and roll gradient analysis. It was
concluded that there is a market for this configuration, however, implementing it would require
extensive design work.

Keywords: Air Suspension, AWD, FWD, Tractor, Truck

 PREFACE
This thesis was conducted in the master program Engineering Design – Machine Design at
KTH Royal Institute of Technology. It was performed at Scania CV AB in the department of
Customized Truck Development during the spring of 2019.

First of all, we would like to thank our industrial supervisors Johan Nordkvist and Maria Yngve
for their support and guidance throughout the project. Secondly, we would also like to thank
people we have met for advice from the Scania departments RSM, KTSA, KTPC, GPN, RTCB,
RTCC and MPPE.

Finally, we want to thank our academic supervisor Ulf Sellgren.

Jacob Andersson & Fredrik Danielsson

Stockholm 2019-06-05
 NOMENCLATURE

Notations
Symbol Description
a Distance Front of Cab to Front Wheel Centre
A Truck Frontal Area
Abeam Beam Cross Section Area
ad Axle Distance
ASLT Air Spring Link Thickness
b Track Width
c Distance Front Wheel Centre to CoG
Cd Aerodynamic Drag Coefficient
Cr Rolling Resistance Coefficient
d Distance Rear Wheel to Fifth Wheel
D Drag Force
DC Front Axle Drop
DH Driving Height
ΔNfront Front Lateral Load Transfer
ΔNrear Rear Lateral Load Transfer
Fi Driving/Braking Force Wheel i
f CoG Height
FRCH Front Roll Centre Height
g Gravitational Acceleration
he Centre of Gravity Height Over Roll Centre Axis
i Fifth Wheel Height
Ltot Lateral Force Total
Li Lateral Force Wheel i
mtruck Truck Mass
mfw Trailer Mass on Fifth Wheel
mtrailer Total Trailer Mass
M Bending Moment
Ni Normal Force Wheel i
R Turning Radius
Ri Rolling Resistance Force Wheel i
RR Rolling Radius
RRCH Rear Roll Centre Height
ρ Air Density
SDH Spring Design Height
SRC Air Spring Roll Centre
σe Von Mises Equivalent Stress
σi Normal Stress in i Direction
τij Shear Stress in ij Plane
TSH Total Suspension Height
ν Relative Velocity Truck to Surrounding Air
𝑥̇ Longitudinal Velocity
𝑥̈ Longitudinal Acceleration
𝑦̈ Lateral Acceleration
Wb Bending Resistance

Abbreviations
4WD Four Wheel Drive
A-Order Order of Standard Truck
AB Aktiebolag – Joint Stock Company
AG Automotive Group
ARB Anti-roll Bar
AWD All Wheel Drive
CAD Computer Aided Design
CBA Cost Benefit Analysis
CNG Compressed Natural Gas
CoG Centre of Gravity
EBS Electronic Brake System
EoM Equation of Motion
FBD Free Body Diagram
FEA Finite Element Analysis
FMEA Failure Modes and Effects Analysis
FMT Functions & Means Tree
FW Front Wheel
FWD Front Wheel Drive
KTH Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan
KTPC Scania Department for Product Management – Construction
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
LNG Liquefied Natural Gas
MBS Multi Body Simulation
N.V Naamloze Vennootschap – Joint Stock Company
PRS Product Request System
PTO Power Take Off
QFD Quality Function Deployment
RTCB Scania Department for Chassis Design
RWD Rear Wheel Drive
S-Order Order of Customized Truck
WBS Work Breakdown Structure
WVTA Whole Vehicle Type Approval
YS Scania Department for Vehicle Service Information
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1
1.2 Purpose and Definitions 1
1.2.1 Project Missions 1
1.2.2 Project Objectives 1
1.2.3 Project Deliverables 2
1.2.4 Project Delimitations 2
1.2.5 Project Stakeholders 2
1.2.6 Project Planning 4
1.3 Methodology 4
1.3.1 Work Breakdown Structure 4
1.3.2 Frame of Reference 5
1.3.3 Requirement Specification 5
1.3.4 Function and Mean Decomposition 6
1.3.5 Concept Generation 6
1.3.6 Concept Evaluation and Development 6
1.3.7 Vehicle Optimizer – Version 2019.03 7
1.3.8 CAD – Catia v5 7
1.3.9 Numerical Analysis – MATLAB R2018.b 7

2 FRAME OF REFERENCE 9

2.1 Vehicle and Suspension Dynamics 9

2.1.1 Vehicle Coordinate System 9
2.1.2 4x4 Truck Free Body Diagram 9
2.1.3 Suspension Purpose and Limitations 12
2.1.4 Rigid Axles - Suspension Arrangements 12
2.1.5 Suspension Dynamics 13
2.2 Operating Conditions 17
2.3 Drivetrain 17
2.3.1 AWD 17
2.3.2 General Pros & Cons of Driveline Systems 19
2.4 Type Designation System 19
2.4.1 Cabs 20
2.4.2 Power Codes – Engines 20
 2.4.3 Chassis Adaptations 20
2.4.4 Wheel Configurations 20
2.4.5 Chassis Heights 22
2.4.6 Suspensions 22
2.5 Additional Scania Options 24
2.5.1 Chassis Selection 24
2.5.2 Brake System 25
2.6 Loading 25
2.6.1 Critical Components of Air Suspension Systems 25
2.6.2 Axle Pressure Regulations 25
2.7 RWD Suspension 25
2.7.1 Front Air Suspension 25
2.7.2 Rear Two-Bellow Air Suspension 30
2.7.3 Component Configurations and Measurements 30
2.7.4 Evaluation RWD Suspension 32
2.8 FWD Suspension 32
2.8.1 Front Leaf Suspension 32
2.8.2 Rear Two-Bellow Air Suspension 34
2.8.3 Component Configurations and Measurements 35
2.9 On-demand FWD 36
2.10 Benchmarking 38
2.10.1 MAN Truck & Bus AG 39
2.10.2 Volvo Trucks (Volvo AB) 39
2.10.3 Terberg Techniek – Volvo Bodybuilder 40
2.10.4 Renault 40
2.10.5 Dongfeng Trucks (DFCV) 40
2.10.6 DAF Trucks 41
2.10.7 GINAF 41
2.10.8 Mercedes-Benz (Daimler AG) 41
2.10.9 Freightliner Trucks 41
2.10.10 IVECO 41
2.10.11 TATA Motors (TATA Group) 41
2.10.12 Hendrickson International 42
2.10.13 TATRA Trucks 43
2.10.14 Avia Motors 44
2.10.15 Navistar – International Trucks 44
 2.10.16 Hino Motors 44
2.10.17 Kelderman 44
2.10.18 Benchmarking Summation 45
2.11 Volume of Produced Scania Trucks 46

3 IMPLEMENTATION 47

3.1 Requirement Specification 47

3.1.1 End-User Needs 47
3.1.2 Corporate Requirements 47
3.1.3 Societal Requirements 47
3.2 Concept Generation 47
3.2.1 Concept 1 - Hydraulic FWD, Leaf Springs 48
3.2.2 Concept 2 - Hydraulic FWD, Four-Link with Panhard-rod 49
3.2.3 Concept 3 - Hydraulic FWD, Four-Link 49
3.2.4 Concept 4 - Hydraulic FWD, Four-Link with Watt-Link 50
3.2.5 Concept 5 - Mechanical FWD, Leaf springs 50
3.2.6 Concept 6 - Mechanical FWD, Four-Link with Panhard-rod 51
3.2.7 Concept 7 - Mechanical FWD, Four-Link 51
3.2.8 Concept 8 - Mechanical FWD, Four-Link with Watt-Link 52
3.3 Concept Evaluation 52
3.3.1 Pugh’s Matrix 52
3.3.2 Half Time Presentation - Design Review 55
3.4 Concept Development 56
3.4.1 Interference Analysis 56
3.4.2 Force Analysis 60
3.4.3 Roll Gradient Analysis 61

4 RESULTS 63

4.1 The Proposed Designs 63

4.1.1 Redesign Suggestions Concept 1 63
4.1.2 Redesign Suggestions Concept 5 63
4.2 Force Analysis 67
4.3 Roll Gradient Analysis 67

5 CONCLUSION 69

6 DISCUSSION 71

7 RECOMMENDATIONS 73
8 REFERENCES 75

APPENDIX A – WBS I

APPENDIX B – ROLL CENTRE EVALUATION III

APPENDIX C – QFD V

APPENDIX D – FMT VII

APPENDIX E – CONCEPT COMPONENTS XI

APPENDIX F – FORCE ANALYSIS: INPUT PARAMETERS XIII

APPENDIX G – FORCE ANALYSIS: EOMS XV

APPENDIX H – FORCE ANALYSIS: MATLAB XXIII

APPENDIX I – FORCE ANALYSIS: RESULTS XXIX

 1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter explains the background of this project such as the recent customer demand, the
current available Scania products, as well as a description of the project goals and limitations.

1.1 Background
Scania recently received customer requests of all wheel driven, AWD, trucks with air
suspension on all wheel axles, “PRS 57707”. Historically, the AWD trucks have typically been
used in harsh, off-road conditions such as in military or mining conditions. Today, they are also
used in less severe conditions but with high demands on traction. This can for example be road
maintenance vehicles, timber trucks, tippers, firefighting trucks, airport trucks or heavy haulers.

Air suspensions are systems often used in passenger vehicles, busses and trucks. “A suspension
system is considered to be air suspended if at least 75 % of the spring effect is caused by the
air spring” according to the European Union COUNCIL DIRECTIVE 96/5 3/EC [1]. Air
suspension on trucks offers a lot of advantages. It can provide noise reduction, less vibrations,
thus better driver comfort than its alternative, leaf springs [2]. Air suspension also enables the
possibility of adjusting the chassis height depending on which load it is carrying, which ensures
a smoother ride and improves the cargo protection [3]. However, air suspension is usually more
costly than leaf springs in terms of additional maintenance [4]. Leaf springs are also seen as
more durable for heavy loaded trucks, but worse for lightly loaded trucks due to vibrations [4].

The interest in full air suspension on AWD trucks seems to be within the on-road vehicles and
the demand is estimated to 50 trucks/year initially [5]. Currently, Scania offers AWD trucks
with air suspension on rear axles but leaf springs on the front axle, alternatively full air
suspension without FWD. The combination of air suspension with FWD has not been
implemented earlier because the demand has been presumed low.

1.2 Purpose and Definitions

The purpose of this study was to increase Scania’s market share and maintaining long term
customers. This project investigated the combination of air suspension with AWD. The
investigation included a technical as well as a business perspective with recommendations of
how/if this combination could or should be implemented in future product development.

1.2.1 Project Missions

The project aimed to accommodate the customer request of increased comfort of Scania’s AWD
trucks and the ability of better weight adjustments on the chassis.

1.2.2 Project Objectives

The objectives of this project was to investigate the possibility of applying air suspension on
all axles on an AWD truck. It also included investigating the customer/market must have and
nice to have demands for these specific trucks, which included generating a concept proposal
for solving the problem and a business case of the product to put it into context. The concerning
questions that was answered during the project was:

• Is there a need for trucks with FWD and air suspension? In that case, within which
applications?

1
 • How does the current leaf and air suspension configurations look at Scania trucks today?
• How has the current configurations performed in testing and operation?
• Are there competitors or bodybuilders providing FWD and air suspension on their
trucks?
• What are the requirements of such a system?
• Can it be implemented with existing Scania parts? If not, what new parts should be
introduced?
• How does the driving torque affect the suspension forces?
• How do wheel axle drop and wheel size affect the suspension forces?
• How do the generated concepts’ roll gradient compare to current trucks?

1.2.3 Project Deliverables

The project deliverables was:

• A specification of customer must have and nice to have demands.

• Benchmarking of how the market perceive these trucks, which technology that are used
and if/how competitors have a solution for this.
• Different concepts of solving the project mission.
• An evaluation of these concepts.
• A business case of the product.

1.2.4 Project Delimitations

This project focused on:

• Concept generation.
• S-order implementation.
• Trucks with
o Wheel configuration 4x4.
o Articulated chassis adaption.
o Dependent suspension on the current rigid driven axle.
o Independent suspension systems.
o Rear 2-bellow air suspension.
o Cabs in normal longitudinal position.

This project did not focus on:

• Detailed design and manufacturing of the concept.
• Investigation of A-order implementation.
• Off-road applications.
• Electrical driven axles.
• Comprehensive cost analysis.

1.2.5 Project Stakeholders

All the stakeholders were evaluated using a Stakeholder Assessment Grid [6]. The grid is
presented in Figure 1.1. The Stakeholder Assessment Grid presented below was based on
assumptions by the authors.

2
 Figure 1.1 Stakeholder Assessment Grid

1) The most important stakeholders, i.e. the ones with high interest and high power were
the two industrial supervisors as well as the Scania corporate. The supervisors had the
closest connection to the project from Scania’s perspective and they could influence the
scope and the work on a detailed level. Since their department was responsible of the
investigation, they most likely also had a high interest.

The Scania corporate had high interest in terms of earning money and maintaining the
development at state of the art. The corporate also had the power to continue or stop the
project at any time.

Scania uses many suppliers for components used in their products. Suppliers of leaf
spring vs air suspensions could for example have a negative and positive interest
respectively in this project. Moreover, the continuation of the project is likely dependent
on suppliers for producing the product, i.e. giving them high power as well.

2) The supervisor from KTH and the university department responsible for the project were
two stakeholders with high influencing power over the project, but perhaps with lower
interest in the project results than the responsible entity at Scania. Another stakeholder
that influenced the concept generation greatly was Scania’s production department. The
main concept developed in this project had to consider the manufacturing process during
the designing phase.

Must have and nice to have demands of the customers/market have also had a significant
impact over the project. One of the objectives of the project was to create a business
case, which to great extent was based on these needs and wants.

3) Other Scania employees were probably interested in the project of the same reasons as
Scania corporate but the could only influence the project by providing knowledge and
feedback.

3
 The operators had a high interest of improving their comfort and work environment.
However, since they usually do not buy the trucks themselves, they had low power of
the framing of the project. Nevertheless, they could influence the project by specifying
requirements or desires in operating conditions.

The Scania dealers are interested in providing their customers with a comprehensive
catalogue of vehicle variations. However, they were not directly involved in the project.

Scania’s competitors might have had an interest in replicating the project and therefore
improve their business. They could also have had influenced the project negatively in
case of patent application submission before Scania.

4) Environmental factors, factors from the society, feedback from opposition, other master
thesis students and KTH were stakeholders with lower power and interest than the
stakeholders above. The environment and society was affected by the input of the
project and feedback from opposition during the project was continuously affecting the
output of the project, especially the final report.

1.2.6 Project Planning

The project was planned using a work breakdown structure, WBS, which is presented in
Appendix A – WBS.

1.3 Methodology
1.3.1 Work Breakdown Structure

A WBS-model [6] was used as a method for the initial breakdown of the project structure.
Figure 1.2 illustrated below is an example of a WBS-structure.

Figure 1.2 Example of WBS [6]

The top-level of the WBS was the project mission. The 2nd-level of the WBS was the different
areas of the project such as project management and areas of concept developing. A WBS can

4
have many levels, but should only answer a maximum of ten project deliverables [6]. The WBS
of this project is displayed in Appendix A – WBS.

1.3.2 Frame of Reference

When investigating the current state of art, the following platforms have been used in addition
to regular information search of public articles:

• KTH Library
• Scania’s internal database of drawings and reports
• Competitor’s distributor programs (Multi) for customer configuration and body-builder
drawings
• Interviews with Scania employees
• Contact with competitor sales and distribution departments

1.3.3 Requirement Specification

To connect different customer, corporate and social requirements with product functional
requirements, a quality function deployment, QFD, was used. The template was received from
the course material in MF2011 System engineering at KTH [7] and is presented in Figure 1.3.

Figure 1.3 Quality Function Deployment Template [7]

First of all, the overall requirements from customer, corporate and society were stated in the
first column. They were further synthesized in the second column as system requirements with
quantified measures. On top of the yellow section, the different functions generated in the
function and means tree, FMT, were stated. These could then be connected with dots in the
yellow section to the system requirements. Furthermore, in the fourth column, the verification
method for each requirement was described. Finally the blue section could have been used to
identify interfaces and to cluster components into modules.

5
1.3.4 Function and Mean Decomposition

To separate the different functions from each other and to generate concepts for each function,
a FMT, was used, an example is presented in Figure 1.4.

Figure 1.4 Function and Means Tree

The top level of the tree consisted of the system’s main function. This was fulfilled by one or
several parallel means. These means could then have further independent functions
respectively. In the FMT chart, the functions were represented with a star symbol and the means
with a gear symbol. The chart also included means that have been considered but excluded in
the development process, the symbols were in that case faded. Since the functions usually were
dependent on the means, the generation of functions was done in parallel with 1.3.5 Concept
Generation.

1.3.5 Concept Generation

The concept generation was conducted in order to find means to the functions initiated in the
FMT and to fulfil the system requirements stated in the QFD. This was done with a
brainstorming session where each function was specified and handled independently.

1.3.6 Concept Evaluation and Development

The concepts were evaluated in a Pugh’s matrix based on several decided criteria, see the
example in Table 1.1. Where S means similar, + means better and - means worse than the
reference concept. The matrix enabled comparison between concept and consequently selection
of the final concept(s).

6
 Table 1.1 Pugh’s Matrix Example

To know how the different concepts met the criteria in the matrix, it required for example 3D-
drawings and further analysis. The different concepts were also presented at a Technical
meeting at Scania to get feedback and advice. The Technical meetings are held within the
department.

1.3.7 Vehicle Optimizer – Version 2019.03

Vehicle Optimizer is a program used by distributors, sales offices and costumers of Scania. In
this project, the program was used to estimate dimensions, variables and forces acting on 4x2
and 4x4 trucks. Truck pictures used for free body diagrams were also acquired from Vehicle
Optimizer.

1.3.8 CAD – Catia v5

To look at the product environment and specify geometrical requirements as well as to make
3D-drawings and evaluate concepts, the program Catia v5 was used. The program is commonly
used by all designers at Scania and it is possible to breakdown current components and
assemblies.

1.3.9 Numerical Analysis – MATLAB R2018.b

Matlab R2018.b is a numerical computing program. It was primarily used for numerical
analysis conducted during the project.

7
 2 FRAME OF REFERENCE
The frame of reference that has been studied in the project is presented in this chapter.

2.1 Vehicle and Suspension Dynamics

Vehicles are complex systems with many moving components. To improve the performance
and comfort of the vehicle, it is crucial to control how these components move during operation.

2.1.1 Vehicle Coordinate System

The vehicle motion can be described using equations for motion where the vehicle is regarded
as a point mass. A commonly used coordinate system for the equation of motion, EoM, are
defined in the standard SAE J670 Vehicle Dynamics Terminology [8], see Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Vehicle Coordinate System [8]

The coordinate system has its origin in the vehicle’s centre of gravity, CoG. The three
translational coordinates are called longitudinal, lateral and vertical, where longitudinal is in
the driving direction. The three rotational coordinates are called roll, pitch and yaw.

2.1.2 4x4 Truck Free Body Diagram

A vehicle is subjected to various loads. By adding inertia forces to the CoG (d’Alembert’s
approach), the problem can be regarded as a static system, i.e. ∑F=0 [9], see Figure 2.2, Figure
2.3 and Figure 2.4.

9
 Figure 2.2 4x4 Articulated Truck, FBD Top View

The four wheels have three horizontal contact forces respectively, the propulsion/braking force,
Fi, the rolling resistance force, Ri, and the lateral force, Li. The truck is subjected to an
aerodynamic drag force, D, and inertia forces from the truck and trailer in all three directions.
The position of CoG includes the mass of the truck, mtruck, as well as the mass portion from the
trailer that is carried by the fifth wheel, mfw. The total mass of the trailer is called mtrailer. Note
that the truck has to accelerate the full trailer weight mtrailer, but only deaccelerate mfw since the
trailer also has brakes.

Figure 2.3 4x4 Articulated Truck, FBD Side View

All four wheels also have a vertical contact forces, Ni.

10
 Figure 2.4 4x4 Articulated Truck, FBD Front View

The rolling resistance force was calculated using,

𝑅𝑖 = 𝐶𝑅 ∙ 𝑁𝑖 (1)

where CR is the rolling coefficient. For a truck on a good track, CR can be estimated to 0.06 [9].

The aerodynamic drag force was calculated using,

1
𝐷 = 2 𝜌𝐶𝐷 𝐴𝜈 2 (2)

where ρ is the air density, Cd is the drag coefficient, A is the frontal area and ν is the relative
velocity between the air and the vehicle [9].

The total lateral inertia force, Ltot, while turning was calculated using,
(𝑚𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑐𝑘 +𝑚𝑓𝑤) 𝑥̇ 2
𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 = , (3)
𝑅

where 𝑥̇ is the velocity and R is the turning radius [9].

The front lateral load transfer was calculated as, [9]

𝑎𝑑−𝑐 𝑓
∆𝑁𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑡 = 𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 ∙ ∙𝑏 (4)
𝑎𝑑

and the rear lateral load transfer as, [9]

𝑐 𝑓
∆𝑁𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑟 = 𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 ∙ 𝑎𝑑 ∙ 𝑏 (5)

The lateral forces were calculated using, [9]

𝑎𝑑−𝑐 𝑁1
𝐿1 = 𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 ∙ ∙𝑁 (6)
𝑎𝑑 1 +𝑁2

11
 𝑎𝑑−𝑐 𝑁2
𝐿2 = 𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 ∙ ∙𝑁 (7)
𝑎𝑑 1 +𝑁2

𝑐 𝑁3
𝐿3 = 𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 ∙ 𝑎𝑑 ∙ 𝑁 (8)
3 +𝑁4

𝑐 𝑁4
𝐿4 = 𝐿𝑡𝑜𝑡 ∙ 𝑎𝑑 ∙ 𝑁 (9)
3 +𝑁4

2.1.3 Suspension Purpose and Limitations

The main purpose of the suspension is to increase driver safety and comfort as much as possible.
This is done by keeping the contact between the wheel and the road, and by reducing vibrations
and noise for the driver. By using springs, the vehicle load is carried, but isolates the road from
the driver. Additionally, dampers are used to dampen oscillations. [10]

Moreover, one key feature to meet this purpose is to decrease resonance peaks around
eigenfrequencies for the unsprung mass as well as the sprung mass and the persons in the
vehicle. The unsprung mass can typically have eigenfrequencies around 10 Hz and humans
around 1 Hz, see Figure 2.5 [10].

Figure 2.5 Eigenfrequencies [10]

However, meeting the requirement of traction and comfort has been proven to be in conflict.
Generally, soft dampening improves comfort but worsen traction and vice versa [10].

A regular leaf spring, also called a passive suspension, would have to compromise between
comfort and safety. By having a suspension that can control damping coefficient or spring
stiffness, called semi-active or active suspension, this conflict can be reduced. Air spring
suspension is an example of a semi-active spring system since the spring stiffness can be
adjusted by adding/removing air to the bellow. However, this procedure also influences the
height of the vehicle [10].

2.1.4 Rigid Axles - Suspension Arrangements

There are several ways of mounting and suspending rigid wheel axles, it can be done with for
instance Hotchkiss arrangements or four-link arrangements. The main task of the arrangements

12
is to rigidly handle longitudinal and lateral forces, but keeping compliance in the vertical
direction. The Hotchkiss suspension uses leaf springs to fulfil all these tasks, occasionally with
additional rods for lateral support, see Figure 2.6 [11].

Figure 2.6 Hotchkiss Arrangement [11]

Four-link arrangements have four links to allow the rigid axle to move close to vertical, see
Figure 2.7 [12].

Figure 2.7 Four-link Arrangement [12]

Since the axle will rotate around the chassis mounting point of the control arms, it will have a
small longitudinal wheel travel. In addition, the four link suspension requires additional springs
for taking the vertical loads, for example air or coil springs. The four-link arrangement has
lateral support from for instance inclined control arms or from a Panhard-rod. The different
spring types are discussed further in subsection 2.4.6.

2.1.5 Suspension Dynamics

When the vehicle is turning, the body starts to roll, i.e. rotate around the longitudinal direction.
One purpose of the suspension is to handle the roll efficiently since it significantly influences
the handling of the vehicle. The roll characteristics is described with the theoretical parameter
called the vehicle’s roll centre axis. The roll centre axis is defined as an axis from the front roll

13
centre to the rear roll centre. An example of a roll centre axis on a 4x4 truck is presented in
Figure 2.8.

Figure 2.8 4x4 Roll Centre Axis

The front roll centre height, FRCH, the rear roll centre height, RRCH and the vertical distance
from CoG to the roll centre axis, he are also seen in Figure 2.8.

For rigid axles on trucks, the roll centre axis is advised to be inclined as in Figure 2.8. The
reason for this is that the rigid axle has low anti-roll support since the distance between the
springs compared to the track width is much shorter. Accordingly, to have as high anti-roll
support as possible, the springs and anti-roll bars, ARBs, should be mounted as close to the
wheels as possible [11].

The roll centre on trucks should preferably be high since this helps to reduce the body
inclination. If the truck has leaf springs, the roll centre is on the same height as the main leaf
since the lateral forces are transferred here. Therefore, trucks usually have their leaf springs
mounted on top of the rigid axles, left side in Figure 2.9 compared to passenger car, right side
in Figure 2.9 [11].

Figure 2.9 Roll Centre Leaf Spring [11]

14
More specifically, the roll centre height will be at the intersection of a vertical axis through the
centre of the wheel axle and an axis between the leaf spring chassis mountings. See Figure 2.10
[9].

Figure 2.10 Roll Centre Leaf Spring height [9]

If the truck has a Panhard-rod to take lateral forces, the roll centre height is instead on the
intersection between the rod and the truck centreline, see Figure 2.11. This means that the roll
centre height changes while cornering. By using a Watt-link, which has rotational mounting
that acts as the roll centre, this can be avoided, see Figure 2.12 [11].

Figure 2.11 Panhard-rod [11]

Figure 2.12 Watt-link [11]

Another configuration for taking lateral loads on four link suspension is using an A-arm instead
of the upper control arms, see Figure 2.13. In this case, the roll centre is at the A-arm’s
mounting point on the axle.

15
 Figure 2.13 A-arm [11]

The four-link suspension can also have inclined upper control arms towards the centreline, see
Figure 2.14. The roll centre height for this configuration will be at the point where the control
arms centre axis intersect with the centre line of the vehicle [11].

Figure 2.14 Inclined Control Arms [11]

16
2.2 Operating Conditions
As discussed in 1.1 Background, Bo Eriksson at KTPC1 working with customer demands,
estimates that the demand for trucks with AWD and full suspension is substantial. Mainly in
operations like:

• Airport trucks, which have legal demands on accessibility, traction etc. Mostly driven
on tarmac.
• Firefighting trucks, mainly used in central Europe. Mostly driven on public roads.
• Tipper trucks, which are driven longer distances on public roads and short distances on
construction sites.
• Timber trucks, driven mostly on public roads but the last part can be on forest road.
• Heavy haulage, heavy transportation on public roads, slower speeds.

Since most of the applications partly drives on public roads, the load capacity is limited by
regulations.

2.3 Drivetrain
There are several different types of drivetrain systems used today. The most commonly used
configuration for passenger vehicles is the front wheel drive, FWD, systems [13] . FWD implies
that the power from the motor is distributed to the front wheels of the vehicle. However, heavier
passenger cars and commercial trucks often uses rear wheel drive, RWD. There are also
systems that distributes power to both the front wheel and the rear wheels, four wheel drive,
4WD, or all AWD systems [14].

2.3.1 AWD

AWD is a drivetrain system where the engine power is distributed to all of the wheels. This
implies that trucks with tag axles per definition should not be considered as AWD. AWD
systems are often confused with the 4WD drive systems, while discussing passenger vehicles.
For passenger vehicles, 4WD is usually referred to a part-time systems, systems that only
distributes power from the engine to the rear-axle in low-traction conditions and AWD is
referred to drivetrain systems that supplies power to all wheels of the vehicle at all times [15].
However, both these systems would be referred to as AWD for trucks, hence all 4x4, 6x6 and
8x8 truck driveline systems are in this report referred to as AWD. A simplified schematic
illustration of a 4x4 drivetrain system with components [16] is presented in Figure 2.15.

1
Bo Eriksson, KTPC, interview 2019-02-20

17
 Figure 2.15 Schematic Illustration of Mechanical AWD Propulsion System

The power of a 4x4 drivetrain system is distributed from the engine through a transmission to
the transfer case. The transfer case allocates power to both the front and rear axle through
propeller shafts and differentials [16]. There are also other 4x4 drivetrain systems that instead
uses a combination of mechanical drive and hydraulic drive systems. A simplified illustration
of these system is presented in Figure 2.16.

Figure 2.16 Schematic Illustration of Hydraulic/Mechanical AWD Propulsion System

The power of these drivetrain systems is distributed from the engine to both a transmission and
a hydraulic pump. The power distributions works similar to the 4x4 drivetrain system seen in
Figure 2.15. However, the front wheels are in this system instead powered by one mutual or
two separate hydraulic motors powered by hydraulic pumps [17]. These types of system is
further explained in section 2.9.

18
2.3.2 General Pros & Cons of Driveline Systems

FWD, RWD and AWD have different properties and are suitable for different applications. A
table presenting these are illustrated in Table 2.1. [14].

Table 2.1. Properties of Driveline Systems

System Pros Cons Areas of Application
FWD ➢ Cheaper to manufacture ➢ Risk of experiencing Passenger cars, light-
than RWD. torque steer. weight vehicles.
➢ Good traction due to high ➢ Larger turning
weight on the driving radius than RWD
wheels. vehicles.
RWD ➢ No torque steer on dry ➢ Risk of poor traction Trucks, sports cars,
surfaces. in inclement weather estate cars.
➢ Good turning radius. conditions.
AWD ➢ Well suited for handling ➢ Usually more Military, firefighting
poor road conditions. expensive than maintenance and
➢ Excellent traction. FWD and RWD. heavy haulage trucks.

As seen in Table 2.1 trucks rarely use only FWD driveline systems, where instead RWD and
AWD systems are more commonly used. RWD is the most common driveline systems for
trucks with on-road applications and AWD is more common for trucks with off-road
applications or trucks with a need of good traction properties.

2.4 Type Designation System

To fit different user demands and applications, trucks can be configurated in many different
ways. The main choices that the costumer have to make is between different cabs, engines,
chassis adaptation, wheel configurations and suspensions. The different truck manufacturers
uses similar type designation system for describing that. The system that Scania has, is
illustrated in Figure 2.17 [18].

Figure 2.17 Scania Type Designation System [18]

19
All the main choices the costumer makes, are described with a type designation similar to the
one in Figure 2.17. However, the six choices cannot always be done independently. The two
most powerful engines can for instance only be configured with cabs R- or S-series.

2.4.1 Cabs

Scania has five different cabs, L-, P-, G-, R- and S-series which has increasing size, see Figure
2.18 [19].

Figure 2.18 Scania Cab Types [19]

They are described in Scania’s type designation standard [18] as:

L Low-entry cab
P Low cab
G High cab
R High mounted cab
S High mounted cab with flat floor

2.4.2 Power Codes – Engines

The different engine options is usually named with their power rating in horsepower. There are
four displacement volumes, 7, 9, 13 and 16 litres and three fuel types, Diesel, Ethanol (ED95)
and gas (CNG/LNG). These have several arrangements respectively, which gives around 18
alternatives for Euro6-class engines.

2.4.3 Chassis Adaptations

There are two possible chassis adaptations,

A Tractor chassis, also called articulated.

B Truck chassis, also called rigid or basic truck.

The tractor is used for mounting a trailer directly to the chassis with a fifth wheel. The rigid
chassis however, is adapted to fit bodywork on. [18]

2.4.4 Wheel Configurations

There are five main types of wheel axles, see Table 2.2 [20].

20
 Table 2.2 Wheel axles [20]

a) Front axle, steered and not driven.

b) Front axle, steered and driven.
c) Rear axle, driven,
d) Tag axle not steered or driven.
e) Tag axle, steered and not driven.

The type designation system starts with describing Number of load carrying wheels x Number
of driven wheels. The simplest truck would therefore have the naming 4x2, thus having one
type a) and one type c) axle, see Figure 2.19 [18].

Figure 2.19 4x2 [20]

If an extra tag axle (type d) would be added in front of the first driven axle, the name will end
with / followed by the total number of steered wheels, in this case 6x2/2, see Figure 2.20 [18].

Figure 2.20 6x2/2 [20]

If an extra tag axle (type e) would be added behind the rearmost driven axle, the name will end
with * followed by the total number of steered wheels, in this case 6x2*4, see Figure 2.21 [18].

Figure 2.21 6x2*4 [20]

If extra tag axles (type e) would be added in front of the first driven axle and behind the rearmost
driven axle, the name will end with /* followed by the total number of steered wheels, in this
case 8x2/*6, see Figure 2.22 [18].

Figure 2.22 8x2/*6 [20]

21
If the rearmost axle is removed from an existing configuration, the name will end with -2
which means that the number of wheels is actually less than the first number. For instance, if
you have 8x2 and would like to remove the last tag axle, it will be 8x2-2, see Figure 2.23 [18].

Figure 2.23 8x2 and 8x2-2 [20]

If an extra tag axle (type d) would be added behind the rearmost driven axle to an existing
configuration, the name will end with +2, which means that the number of wheels is actually
more than the first number. For instance, if you have 4x4 and would like to add a rearmost tag
axle, it will be 4x4+2 which has six load carrying wheels, see Figure 2.24 [18].

Figure 2.24 4x4 and 4x4+2 [20]

2.4.5 Chassis Heights

There are four possible chassis heights, also called driving height,

E Extra low
L Low
N Normal
H High

The chassis height is partly measured from the centre of the driven rear wheel axle to the top of
the chassis frame and partly from the respective measurement for the front axle [18]. The
chassis height is dependent on what suspension and wheel axle that is chosen. The chassis
height for front air suspension is further discussed in subsection 2.7.3.

Moreover, when the truck has FWD, only high chassis height is possible, it is in fact slightly
higher than the regular high. The reason for this is that the larger front axle with differential
needs more space to avoid collision with the engine [21]. The driving heights for FWD is
presented in subsection 2.8.3.

2.4.6 Suspensions

There are four main categories of suspension for trucks [18]:

A Front leaf spring suspension and rear air suspension

B Front and rear air suspension
C Front air suspension and rear leaf spring suspension
Z Front and rear leaf spring suspension

However, option C does not generally apply.

22
Leaf-Spring Suspension

Leaf-spring suspension, also called Hotchkiss arrangement, is a common way of suspending

solid axles and especially in commercial vehicles [9]. It requires few components and provides
stiff properties in the lateral and longitudinal direction, yet keeping compliant vertically. A
typical bogie leaf suspension is presented in Figure 2.25 [22].

Figure 2.25 Leaf-spring Suspension [22]

The suspension uses several leaves to carry the load. The advantages with this kind of
suspension is as discussed in 1.1 Background, low cost, low maintenance, high load capacity
and durable for heavy-duty vehicles.

Air Spring Suspension

The other type of suspension, the, air suspension, uses cushions with compressed air to carry
the load, see Figure 2.26 [23].

Figure 2.26 Two-bellow Air Suspension [23]

The advantages with air suspension are as discussed in 1.1 Background, adjustable suspension
height, comfortable ride, load handling, load display in dashboard, more space on the chassis

23
as well as less overhang in the rear. Because of the adjustable suspension height and spring
stiffness, the suspension is considered as semi-active [10].

The load handling also allows trucks to mount for instance a container without a crane, called
exchangeable load carriers. When the container is placed on stands, the truck is positioned
underneath with the air suspension in its lowest position. By raising the truck, the container will
be lifted from the stands and attached to the truck instead. See illustration in Figure 2.27 [24].

Figure 2.27 Exchangeable Load Carriers [24]

However, this require a longer air suspension height i.e. longer stroke.

2.5 Additional Scania Options

In addition to the different options within the type designation system, there are more options
that the costumer can choose from. Based on these choices, additional configurations and
components may vary accordingly.

2.5.1 Chassis Selection

Another factor is the required strength of the chassis. Chassis used for higher load applications
are typically stronger. Scania has five chassis steps, the first three with a single U-beam with
increasing thickness and two with additional internal reinforcement in form of a second U-
beam.

Thinner chassis entails an increased risk of fatigue failure. There are also geometrical factors
such as wheel configuration, axle distances, type of suspension and the volume of the engine
stroke that could affect the selection process.

Moreover, operating factors such as velocity of the truck, which environment it is used in and
which load that the truck is carrying also affect the selection. Mainly since the operating factors

24
have a significant impact on the expected life of the truck chassis. A truck operated in high
velocity in a harsh environment justifies selecting a more durable chassis [25].

2.5.2 Brake System

Scania offers two different brake systems, drum brakes or disc brakes. However, FWD trucks
can only be configured with drum brakes. In addition there are two different control systems,
pneumatic brake system and electronic brake system, EBS, where disc brakes require EBS.
Currently disc brakes or EBS is not orderable with FWD in the regular product program,
however several S-order trucks has been produced with EBS.

2.6 Loading
The suspension system is designed to sustain loads according to laws and regulations as well
as potential higher customer requests for non-public road applications.

2.6.1 Critical Components of Air Suspension Systems

An air suspension system consists of several different components. Some of the components
are more inclined for breaking or changing their properties during usages. During a failure mode
and effects analysis, FMEA, conducted at Scania in 2015 for RWD trucks with air suspension,
it was concluded that air spring link, torque rod and the shock absorber were the most exigent
components during testing/usages. The main challenges for these components were identified
as fatigue and wear [26].

2.6.2 Axle Pressure Regulations

There are laws and regulations of how much axle load a vehicle can expose public roads to,
which may vary between different countries. However, most European countries abide by laws
and regulations closely related to the “European Council Directive 96/5 3/EC” [1]. Sweden
follows similar regulations specified by the “Transportstyrelsen” [27]. These regulations states
several different weight limitations. For example, regulations such as

• A driven axle on a public road is allowed an axle pressure of maximum 11,5 tons (BK1).
• A non-driven axle on a public road is allowed an axle pressure of maximum 10 tons
(BK1).

2.7 RWD Suspension

Trucks without FWD can today at Scania be configured with air suspension on all wheel axles.
There are three main different system, the front air suspension, the rear two-bellow air
suspension and the rear four-bellow air suspension. However, the four-bellow air suspension
have been left out in this study since only two-bellow is possible on AWD trucks.

2.7.1 Front Air Suspension

The front suspension consist of first of all, two single leaf springs mounted on top of the rigid
axle to take longitudinal and lateral loads, called air spring link. For illustration, see Figure
2.28. Secondly, an air bellow is mounted between the air spring link and the chassis to take
vertical loads. Between the torque rod bracket on the chassis and the torque rod bracket on the
axle, there is a torque rod to handle the rotation of the axle and longitudinal forces. The idea is
that the torque rod and the air spring link together form a parallelogram, which is good for

25
reducing the front axle caster angle change with respect to the suspension travel. Finally the
suspension has a damper and an ARB connected to each side of the axle. The red volume in
Figure 2.28 is representing the deformation of the spring.

Figure 2.28 Front Air Suspension Scania RWD

The lower torque rod bracket clamps the air spring link to the wheel axle using four bolts, see
Figure 2.29.

Figure 2.29 Front Air Spring Link Mounting Scania RWD

The air bellows are positioned with a crossmember on top which is screwed to the chassis. To
align the bellow there are two guide pins at the top and the bottom, see Figure 2.30.

26
 Figure 2.30 Front Air Bellow Mounting Scania RWD

The air spring link is mounted rigidly in the front to the top torque rod bracket and with a
shackle (link) to the chassis in the rear, see Figure 2.31.

Figure 2.31 Front Air Spring Link Mounting Scania RWD

The shock absorber is mounted with two brackets, one to the chassis and one to the wheel axle,
see Figure 2.32.

27
 Figure 2.32 Front Shock Absorber Mounting Scania RWD

The lower shock absorber bracket also has a bearing housing to mount the U-shaped ARB. The
ARB then has a link to connect to the chassis, see Figure 2.33.

Figure 2.33 Front ARB Link Scania RWD

28
The steering is using the principal of actuating the left wheel with a drag link. Then a track
rod is connected between the steering knuckles which makes the right wheel to turn as well,
see Figure 2.34.

Figure 2.34 Front Steering Scania RWD

The front air suspension design that was used before the current one had a four-link arrangement
with a Panhard-rod instead, see Figure 2.35.

Figure 2.35 Old Front Air Suspension Design [28]

The reason why the design was changed for the current truck generation was that the wheel axle
had to be moved 50 mm forward while the front mounting point had to move rearward. Hence,

29
giving shorter links. In addition, removing the Panhard-rod reduced the lateral wheel
displacement as a consequence of vertical displacement [28].

2.7.2 Rear Two-Bellow Air Suspension

The most common rear air suspension is the type with two air bellows per axle, see Figure 2.36.

Figure 2.36 Rear Two-bellow Air Suspension Scania RWD

The suspension uses a thick leaf spring, called air spring link, situated underneath the axle,
mounted rigidly to the chassis in one point and with an air-bellow in one point. The suspension
has dampers but no ARB. The lateral and longitudinal forces are taken by the air spring link
and the vertical by the air spring link and the air bellow.

2.7.3 Component Configurations and Measurements

As discussed in subsection 2.4.5, the driving height depends on chosen wheel axle and
suspension configuration. The five configurations are presented in Table 2.3. The presented
driving heights are for trucks with a single non driven front axle with air suspension and the
cab in normal longitudinal position.

30
 Table 2.3 RWD Front Air Suspension Configurations

The distances DH, DC, TSH, SRC, ASLT, RR and FRCH are illustrated in Figure 2.37.

Since the lateral forces are mainly taken by leaf springs in both the front and the rear
suspensions, the roll centre height was evaluated using the method described in subsection 2.1.5
and Figure 2.10. However, after discussion with senior engineer, Johan Parsons at RTCB,
Scania2, the roll centre height was evaluated as the yellow point in Figure 2.37. Which is the
midpoint between the two yellow line intersections, to also regard the effect of the shackle.

In contrast, since the suspension not only has the air spring link but also the air bellow, it is not
entirely certain that this method for roll centre height estimation is accurate. Multi body
simulations, MBS, at Scania shows that the roll centre height is likely to be lower than the
calculated values with this method.

Figure 2.37 Front Air Suspension Geometry

2
Johan Parsons, RTCB, Scania, interview 2019-03-11

31
The measurements and components in Figure 2.37 and Table 2.3 were extracted from drawings
and technical specifications. The suspension was assumed to be in driving height, i.e. stand still,
full load, and with the maximum tire size for the specific configuration.

2.7.4 Evaluation RWD Suspension

According to Johan Parsons3, no bigger complications has been experienced with the air
suspensions except for some deviations during development. The new front air suspension has
been well received and drivers seems satisfied with the improved impression of stability.

2.8 FWD Suspension

Air suspension was implemented on FWD trucks for the first time at Scania in 2017, it was then
configured for the rear axles only, keeping the leaf springs on the front axle. As discussed in
subsection 2.4.5, the chassis height for this configuration is slightly higher, requiring the rear
air suspension configuration to be adjusted.

2.8.1 Front Leaf Suspension

The front suspension still uses leaf springs to take lateral, longitudinal and vertical loads. There
are four types of leaf springs but they are all mounted to the axle using one guide pin and two
U-bolts per spring, see Figure 2.38 and Figure 2.39.

Figure 2.38 Front Leaf Spring Suspension Scania AWD

The leaf spring is mounted to the chassis with one rigid mount in the front and with a shackle
(link) in the rear, see Figure 2.39. The chassis mounts can be configured with either steel or
rubber bushings.

3
Johan Parsons, RTCB, Scania, interview 2019-03-11

32
 Figure 2.39 Leaf Spring Mounting Scania AWD

The shock absorber and the ARB is mounted to the chassis and on the front side of the wheel
axle, see Figure 2.40 and Figure 2.41.

Figure 2.40 Shock Absorber Mounting Scania AWD

33
 Figure 2.41 ARB Mounting Scania AWD

The steering design for FWD is similar to non FWD, described in subsection 2.7.1, see Figure
2.42.

Figure 2.42 Steering Scania AWD

2.8.2 Rear Two-Bellow Air Suspension

The suspension configuration that was adjusted for AWD was the one discussed in subsection
2.7.2, see comparison in Figure 2.43.

34
 Figure 2.43 Comparison AWD and RWD

The adjustments that were made was mainly:

• Introducing a new air spring link to increase the chassis height.

• Lowering the position of the bump stop relative the chassis using a bracket.
• Adjusting the U-bolt/shock absorber bracket.
• Choosing appropriate shock absorber and air bellow to fit the high chassis height.

2.8.3 Component Configurations and Measurements

As discussed in subsection 2.4.5, the consequence of FWD is high chassis height. However,
there are three different front configurations depending on type of leaf spring, see Table 2.4.

Table 2.4 FWD Front Leaf Suspension Configurations

The distances DH, DC, TSH, SRC, SDH, RR and FRCH are illustrated in Figure 2.44.

The roll centre height was calculated with the same method as in subsection 2.7.3, see yellow
point in Figure 2.44.

35
 Figure 2.44 Front Leaf Suspension Geometry

The measurements and components in Figure 2.44 and Table 2.4 were extracted from drawings
and technical specifications. The suspension was assumed to be in driving height with a 9 ton
axle load and the maximum tire size for the specific configuration.

2.9 On-demand FWD

An alternative to the traditional rigid mechanically driven front axle is the on-demand hydraulic
drive. This is offered by MAN, Mercedes, Renault, Iveco, DAF and Terberg Techniek (Volvo
trucks). It has also been investigated but not implemented by Scania [17].

At Scania, a performance test was conducted with one MAN 4x2 Hydrodrive and one Scania
4x4. The conclusion from that test was that the Scania 4x4 performed slightly better and is
therefore recommended for applications where AWD is needed constantly. However, if AWD
is only needed occasionally, the MAN Hydrodrive could be a competitive alternative because
of lower fuel consumption, lower cost and significantly lower weight. On the other hand, the
MAN Hydrodrive can only be activated from stand still up to speed of 30 km/h [29].

Hydraulic FWD was further investigated in a master thesis conducted at Scania during the
spring of 2018 [17]. Here, the identified pros with hydraulic FWD was increased payload, lower
fuel consumption, lower chassis height and lower cost compared to a mechanically driven front
axle. With help from Scania’s patent department, it was concluded that several patents were
existing, giving small room for Scania to apply for patent. However, since MAN is part of
Traton Group, discussions were made concerning if parts from MAN Hydrodrive could be
implemented on Scania trucks. Since MAN has a different king-pin angle, different interface
with the suspension and different steering components, the following quoted alternatives were
suggested by Larsson and Dahlgren regarding implementation of MAN Hydrodrive [17]:

1. “Use the whole axle from MAN. This would require design of some kind of adapter for
mounting the drop-bar to the spring package and dampers on a Scania truck. Also new
steering components need to be designed to match the interfaces between Scania
steering components and the MAN steering knuckle.”

36
 2. “Use the steering knuckle and wheel hub parts from the MAN-axle. This would result
in that a new drop-bar need to be designed to match the kingpin-interface of the MAN-
spindle. If all possible drop-center dimensions are wanted with hydraulic front wheel
drive, this will results in that four new drop-bars need to be produced. Similar to the
first option, this also requires new steering components to be designed.”
3. “Use the standard interface between drop-bar and steering knuckle from Scania, but
use the MAN wheel hub, brake disc and bearing assembly. This would result in that only
a new steering knuckle need to be designed. This solution would most likely fit all four
standard drop-bar dimensions.”
4. “In the event that MAN and Scania cannot agree on sharing the specific parts stated in
3 above, new parts need to be designed. This results in new design of: steering knuckle,
wheel hub, brake disc and bearing assembly. Regarding the wheel bearing, it should be
possible to use the same kind of bearing assembly as in Scania rear axles.”

The full parts list for alternative 4. above is presented in Table 2.5 [17].

Table 2.5 Parts List On-demand FWD [17]

The authors also identified that it could be a significant cost reduction for the costumer if a
hydraulic FWD would be used instead of regular mechanical FWD, see Figure 2.45 [17].

37
 Figure 2.45 Cost Analysis On-demand FWD [17]

The cost analysis is based on a period of seven years from purchase and C1 to C5 are five
concepts for hydraulic FWD. The cost analysis includes fuel consumption, possible payload
and initial cost [17].

No further investigation of on-demand FWD has been done at Scania since the master thesis
2018.

2.10 Benchmarking
A benchmarking regarding truck suspension system was conducted during the spring of 2019
as a basis for the concept generation. The aim of the benchmarking was to investigate and
compare what suspension systems that the largest truck manufacturers offered. Three questions
were answered for each company:

i. If they were owned or partially owned by a bigger organization.

ii. What type of suspension systems they currently offered.
iii. Other interesting notes.

A generic illustration of the ownership structures of the different truck manufacturers and
suppliers found during the benchmarking are presented in Figure 2.46.

38
 Figure 2.46 Ownership Structure of Major Truck Manufacturers

The truck manufacturers and suppliers written with bold type in Figure 2.46, are described
further in the subsections 2.10.1 to 2.10.17. A summation of what suspension systems that the
different truck manufacturers and suppliers is presented in subsection 2.10.18.

2.10.1 MAN Truck & Bus AG

i. MAN is part of the Traton Group just as Scania.

ii. They offers AWD trucks where the front axle is either driven by a mechanical or a
hydraulic system. However, both of the system can only be configured with air-
suspension on the rear axles. Non-FWD trucks can have full air suspension [30].
iii. During 2017, 81 450 registered trucks were sold [31].

2.10.2 Volvo Trucks (Volvo AB)

i. Volvo Truck is a truck manufacturer owned by Volvo AB (Volvo Group) [32].

ii. Volvo Truck is today providing air suspension on both front and rear axles for non-
AWD trucks. However, on their AWD trucks they only offers rear air suspension,
according to their sales office.

They offer two types of front axle air suspension systems, rigid axle suspension and
independent wheel suspension. The new independent front wheel suspension that Volvo
has developed is presented in Figure 2.47. This system is available for tractors with 4x2
or 6x2 wheel configuration. It is specified to an axle load of maximum 8,5 tons.

39
 Figure 2.47 Individual Front Suspension [33]

The new independent suspension consists of four main components [33]:

1. Double wishbone design – Allows wheel movement vertically and

independently for each wheel.
2. Rack and pinion steering – Decreases the slack between the wheels and the
driver steering.
3. Cross members – Stabilizing the front axle.
4. Air Bellows – Takes the vertical load on axle. Increases the driver comfort.

iii. Volvo Trucks largest markets are Europe and North America, where around 95 % of the
company production is situated in Sweden, Belgium, Brazil and the U.S. [34].

2.10.3 Terberg Techniek – Volvo Bodybuilder

i. Terberg Techniek is a bodybuilder/rebuilder situated in the Netherlands, owned by

Terberg Group [35].
ii. They performs bodybuilds/rebuilds on Volvo trucks and one of their offers is hydraulic
FWD. They call it X-Track and is mounted on the standard Volvo axle, thus allowing
both air and leaf spring suspension. It provides FWD up to 20 km/h and is driven by a
PTO [36].

2.10.4 Renault

i. Renault Trucks is another company part of Volvo AB [32].

ii. Renault offer AWD trucks in their standard product catalogue, however these are
currently only available with the Leaf/Leaf suspension. Renault offers Air/Air, Leaf/Air
and Leaf/Leaf suspension systems for their non AWD trucks. [37].
iii. The main market of Renault trucks is Europe, in particular France [38].

2.10.5 Dongfeng Trucks (DFCV)

i. Dongfeng Commercial Vehicles Co Ltd, also known as Dongfeng Trucks is partially

owned by Dongfeng Motor Group (55%) and Volvo AB (45%) [39].
ii. In the time of writing, no AWD trucks are available in the product catalogue on their
official website. No information regarding their suspension system could be found by
the authors.

40
iii. Dongfeng Trucks is one of the biggest truck manufacturers in China. Their main markets
are South-East Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East and South America [40] with
a production capacity of around 200 000 trucks per year [41].

2.10.6 DAF Trucks

i. DAF trucks is a Dutch truck manufacturer part of the American “Fortune 500”
company Paccar Inc [42].
ii. DAF does not have AWD trucks available in their normal product catalogue. They offer
non-AWD trucks with the combinations of air/air, leaf/air and leaf/leaf suspension
systems [43].

2.10.7 GINAF

i. GINAF is a Dutch company owned by China Hi-tech Group Corporation [44].

ii. GINAF offers hydraulic AWD trucks with steel suspension [45]. They also offers a
hydro pneumatic vehicle suspension (HPVS) for their heavy-duty trucks [46].

2.10.8 Mercedes-Benz (Daimler AG)

i. Mercedes-Benz is part of the Daimler AG [47].

ii. In the time of writing, Mercedes-Benz is offering only offering leaf spring suspension
for their AWD trucks, which is also confirmed by a sales office in Stockholm, Kista.
However, both full air suspension systems and leaf suspension systems are used for their
non-AWD trucks [48].
iii. Mercedes-Benz is one of the largest truck manufactures in Europe.

2.10.9 Freightliner Trucks

i. Freightliner Trucks is a part of Daimler AG.

ii. Today, Freightliner Trucks offers Leaf/Air and Leaf/Leaf on their AWD trucks. They
offer Air/Air, Leaf/Air and Leaf/Leaf on their non-AWD trucks [49].
iii. Freightliner Trucks is one of the largest truck manufacturers in the world and their
main market is North-America [50].

2.10.10 IVECO

i. Industrial Vehicles Corporation, IVECO, is an Italian company and is a part of the CNH
Industrial N.V (CNH Industrial Group).
ii. IVECO has AWD trucks with Leaf/Leaf suspension systems available in their product
catalogue. They also have non-AWD trucks with Air/Air, Leaf/Air and Leaf/Leaf
systems [51]. According to their Nordic customer service, they have currently no
bodybuilders doing FWD with air suspension either.
iii. IVECO is one of the largest truck manufactured in Europe.

2.10.11 TATA Motors (TATA Group)

i. TATA Motors is an Indian truck manufacturer owned by TATA Group.

ii. TATA Motors offers AWD trucks, but not together with any air suspension on front or
rear axles in their standard product catalogue [52]. However, TATA Autocomp
Hendrickson Suspension PVT LTD, which is a joint venture between TATA Autocomp
Systems Limited and Hendrickson International [53], offers air suspension for non-
AWD trucks and air suspension systems for driven bus axles [54].

41
iii. Among one of the biggest truck manufactures in the world.

2.10.12 Hendrickson International

i. Hendrickson is an American suspension supplier partly owned by TATA Group.

ii. They offer suspension systems to trucks and busses of different sizes and requirements.
Hendrickson’s AIRTEK® and COMFORT AIR® are two air suspension systems used
by different truck and bus manufacturers [55]. Hendrickson also offers suspension
systems with for higher durability applications such as their rubber/steel systems
ULTIMAAX® and HAULMAAX® [56].

AIRTEK®
AIRTEK® is an integrated steering and suspension system. It is used as a non-driven
axle in trucks, often as the front-axle of RWD trucks. The AIRTEK® suspension system
is presented in Figure 2.48.

Figure 2.48 AIRTEK ® [57]

The AIRTEK® does not have a Panhard-rod for taking the lateral forces, instead it is
using air spring links for these forces [57]. This solution could be compared to Scania’s
solution presented in subsection 2.7.1.

COMFORT AIR® (15-23k)

The COMFORT AIR® is a rear axle system for busses, trucks and service vehicles. It is
presented in Figure 2.49.

42
 Figure 2.49 COMFORT AIR® [58]

The air spring links combined with a Panhard-rod absorbs the forces of the COMFORT
AIR® [58].

2.10.13 TATRA Trucks

i. Tatra Trucks is part of Czechoslovak group and is a moderate sized manufacturer.

ii. They focuses on AWD trucks and offers an independent driven front axle with air
suspension. The configuration is illustrated in Figure 2.50 [59].

Figure 2.50 Tatra Independent Air Suspension [59]

The axle type is called backbone and uses a central load-carrying tube to take lateral
and longitudinal loads [59].

43
iii. Year 2016 they sold around 1300 trucks [60].

2.10.14 Avia Motors

i. Avia Motors is also part of Czechoslovak group [61].

ii. They offer leaf/leaf and leaf/air on their AWD and non-AWD trucks [62].

2.10.15 Navistar – International Trucks

i. Navistar International Trucks is not solely owned by one bigger organization. However,
Traton Group owns 16.8%.
ii. According to specifications of their trucks, both FWD and non-FWD, they are available
with leaf/leaf or leaf/air [63].
iii. International Trucks provides trucks for the north and south American market.

2.10.16 Hino Motors

i. Hino Motors is a Japanese manufacturer which is part of the Toyota Motor Cooperation.
ii. Hino Motors offers leaf/leaf on their FWD trucks. They offer leaf/leaf or leaf/air on their
non-FWD trucks [64].

2.10.17 Kelderman

i. Kelderman is a small company in Iowa, USA, selling aftermarket components to trucks.

ii. In terms of suspension, they offer air suspensions and one of them is a four-link
arrangement for front axles on 4x4 trucks. This can for instance be bought to Ford F-
650/750, see Figure 2.51 [65] and Figure 2.52 [66].

Figure 2.51 Kelderman Front Air Suspension - F-650/750 2008-2015 [65]

44
 Figure 2.52 Kelderman Front Air Suspension - F-650/750 2016+ [66]

The price for the four-link suspension system is $4495. Kelderman also sell air
suspension to trucks and vans from RAM, Mercedes (Sprinter van), Workhorse Chassis
and GM.

2.10.18 Benchmarking Summation

The possible configurations that the different truck manufacturers offers is summarized in
Table 2.6.

Table 2.6 Available Air Suspension Systems by Truck Manufacturers

Non-FWD FWD
Company A B Z A B Z
Leaf/Air Air/Air Leaf/Leaf Leaf/Air Air/Air Leaf/Leaf
Scania ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ X ✔
MAN ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ X ✔
Volvo ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ X ✔
Terberg1, 2 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Renault ✔ ✔ ✔ - X ✔
Dongfeng - - - X X X
DAF ✔ ✔ ✔ X X X
GINAF 1
N/A N/A ✔ - X ✔
Mercedes ✔ ✔ ✔ X X ✔
Freightliner ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ X ✔
IVECO ✔ ✔ ✔ X X ✔
TATA ✔ ✔ ✔ X X ✔
Hendrickson 3
✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ X ✔
TATRA X X X ✔ ✔ ✔
Avia Motors ✔ X ✔ ✔ X ✔
Navistar ✔ X ✔ ✔ X ✔
Hino Motors ✔ - ✔ X X ✔
1
Kelderman ✔ ✔ N/A ✔ ✔ N/A

Note: 1 = Bodybuilder, 2 = FWD up to 20 km/h and 3

= Suspension supplier.

45
Full air-suspension is only offered by two bodybuilders and one truck manufacturer, Terberg,
Kelderman and TATRA.

2.11 Volume of Produced Scania Trucks

The last couple of years there has not been a significant change in the fraction of FWD versus
non-FWD produced Scania trucks. Nor air suspended trucks. See Figure 2.53 and Figure 2.54.

Figure 2.53 Trend FWD Trucks

Figure 2.54 Trend Air Suspended Trucks

From the year 2013 to 2018 there has only been an increase of 0.65 percentage points of FWD
trucks and 3.2 percentage points of air suspended trucks. However there has been a noticeable
shift from rear air suspension (A-suspension) to full air suspension (B-suspension).

The diagrams are based on statistics from produced trucks during the production period
2013024 to 2019024.

46
 3 IMPLEMENTATION
The project implementation is presented in this chapter.

3.1 Requirement Specification

A QFD was created in order to identify and state the different system requirements. The system
requirements were synthesized from end-user, corporate and societal requirements. These
requirements are presented in Appendix E - QFD.

3.1.1 End-User Needs

End-user requirements were seen as customer nice to have and must have demands. These
included displaying the load of the truck, good driver comfort, sufficient load capacity,
serviceability, AWD options, modularity of the system, life length of the truck and the
additional cost of the system.

3.1.2 Corporate Requirements

Corporate requirements were regarded as corporate must have and nice to have demands of the
system. These included demands for production, component, modularity possibilities, patent
knowledge and company profit.

3.1.3 Societal Requirements

Societal requirements were regarded as laws and legislations the system had to abide by. It also
included demands of preventing work-related injuries and maintaining sustainability properties
of the system.

3.2 Concept Generation

The concept generation was initiated by making an FMT where the different functions were
identified, secondly, different means for solving the functions were brainstormed. The FMT
can be studied in Appendix D – FMT. Based on the different means in the FMT for applying
FW power, contributing lateral and longitudinal support to the front axle, several combinations
were identified, see Table 3.1 and Table 3.2.

Table 3.1 FMT Alternative Means

47
 Table 3.2 Means Combinations

Some of the combinations were regarded as not possible, since they are a combination of leaf
springs and four-link arrangement. Secondly, some of them are possible but irrelevant, such
as combining Panhard-rod with leaf springs. It was regarded as irrelevant since the current
leaf springs can take lateral loads without additional support. The outcome was eight different
concepts, marked with green in Table 3.2. The eight concepts are further discussed in
subsections 3.2.1 to 3.2.8.

3.2.1 Concept 1 - Hydraulic FWD, Leaf Springs

The first concept created from the FMT was the Hydraulic Drive with Leaf Springs concept.
The idea of this concept was to combine a full air suspension systems, a similar system to the
current one that Scania uses for non FWD trucks, with a hydraulic drive for the front axle,
discussed in section 2.9. The hydraulic drive usually works for velocities up to 20-30 km/h. For
higher speeds the hydraulic system shuts off and the truck would instead be driven as a RWD
system. The concept is presented in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Concept 1

48
The concept’s main components for taking the loads are the air bellows and the leaf springs,
where the air bellows mainly takes the vertical loads and the leaf springs takes the lateral and
the longitudinal loads. The torque rod handles the axle rotation. Hydraulic motors are powered
by oil pressure from a hydraulic pump system.

3.2.2 Concept 2 - Hydraulic FWD, Four-Link with Panhard-rod

The second concept was similar to the previous generation front air suspension on Scania trucks
but here with hydraulic FWD. The hydraulic drive system functions similar to the system
described in subsection 3.2.1.

Figure 3.2 Concept 2

The longitudinal forces are taken by the four-linkage and the lateral forces by a Panhard-rod,
see Figure 3.2.

3.2.3 Concept 3 - Hydraulic FWD, Four-Link

The third concept combined hydraulic drive with a four-link system. The system is illustrated
in Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3 Concept 3

49
The purpose of the four links is to take lateral and longitudinal forces. The hydraulic system
works on a similar way to the concepts illustrated above.

3.2.4 Concept 4 - Hydraulic FWD, Four-Link with Watt-Link

The fourth concept was similar to the previous generation front air suspension on Scania trucks
but here with hydraulic FWD and watt-link.

Figure 3.4 Concept 4

The longitudinal forces are taken by the four-linkage and the lateral forces by the Watt-link,
see Figure 3.4.

3.2.5 Concept 5 - Mechanical FWD, Leaf springs

The fifth concept was a system that combines the current FWD axle of Scania with air
suspension, leaf springs and torque rods. This concept is presented in Figure 3.5.

Figure 3.5 Concept 5

Concept 5 was similar to Concept 1, with the difference being a mechanical drive instead of a
hydraulic one. The concept’s main components for taking the loads are the air bellows and the
leaf springs, where the air bellows mainly takes the vertical loads and the leaf springs takes the
lateral and the longitudinal loads. The torque rod handles the axle rotation.

50
3.2.6 Concept 6 - Mechanical FWD, Four-Link with Panhard-rod

The sixth concept combined the previous generation front air suspension on Scania trucks with
the mechanically driven front axle.

Figure 3.6 Concept 6

The longitudinal forces are taken by the four-linkage and the lateral forces by a Panhard-rod,
see Figure 3.6.

3.2.7 Concept 7 - Mechanical FWD, Four-Link

The seventh concept combined mechanical drive with a four-link arrangement. This is seen in
Figure 3.7.

Figure 3.7 Concept 7

51
Concept 7 was similar to Concept 3, with the difference being a mechanical drive instead of a
hydraulic one. The purpose of the four links is to take lateral and longitudinal forces.

3.2.8 Concept 8 - Mechanical FWD, Four-Link with Watt-Link

The eighth concept combined the previous generation front air suspension on Scania trucks
with the mechanically driven front axle and with a Watt-link instead of Panhard-rod.

Figure 3.8 Concept 8

The longitudinal forces are taken by the four-linkage and the lateral forces by a Watt-link, see
Figure 3.8.

3.3 Concept Evaluation

An evaluation of the eight concepts is presented in this section.

3.3.1 Pugh’s Matrix

An unweighted Pugh’s matrix was constructed in order to evaluate the different concepts
generated in section 3.2. System criteria used for this evaluation were based on the functions
and requirements stated in the FMT and QFD. The Pugh’s matrix is illustrated in Table 3.3
Pugh’s Matrix.

52
 Table 3.3 Pugh’s Matrix

Lateral Axle Displacement

The concepts with Panhard-rod has been regarded to have worse lateral axle displacement since
the rod makes the axle to move in the lateral direction when moved vertically. Leaf spring,
four-link and Watt-link will also move in the lateral direction, but evenly when loaded laterally.

Longitudinal Axle Displacement

The concepts using four-link is expected to have more longitudinal axle displacement when
moved vertically since the axle will rotate around the mountings of the four-link. It is partly the
case for the leaf spring arrangement as well because of the torque rod, but it is prevented by the
fact that the leaf spring is mounted on both sides of the axle.

Chassis Height and Roll Centre Height

To evaluate the chassis height and driving height of the concepts with mechanically driven front
axle and with air suspension, numbers from the current systems were used, i.e. measurements
from Table 2.3 and Table 2.4. By adding the total air suspension height to the mechanical FWD
system, the driving height and front roll centre height could be evaluated, see Table 3.4.

53
 Table 3.4 Driving Height Evaluation

Air spring height Normal and Low resulted in a significant increase in driving height
compared to the highest alternative of AWD Leaf Suspension and RWD Air Suspension.
Moreover, air spring height E-low gave similar driving height but lower front roll centre
height. The chassis height-requirement was therefore achieved but further investigation of roll
gradient was needed.

The calculated driving height was used for concepts 5 to 8, assuming that the four-link would
have similar total air suspension height as the leaf spring arrangement, since the main portion
of the height was the air bellow and its mounting. Based on the Figures in subsection 2.1.5, the
front roll centre height should be similar for Panhard-rod and four-link but perhaps slightly
lower for Watt-link.

Payload
The hydraulic concepts, concepts 1-4, were expected to have lower weight than the mechanical
solutions, which was discussed in section 2.9 and illustrated in Figure 2.45, thus enabling more
payload.

FWD Performance
As discussed in section 2.9, the hydraulic FWD systems usually transmit power generating up
to 20-30 km/h before they turn of. The performance of the mechanical system was therefore
considered better.

Simplicity
Since the rear axles will be continuedly driven with mechanical systems, adding a hydraulic
FWD would mean a less simple design compared to use mechanical FWD as well. This is
illustrated by comparing the systems displayed in Figure 2.15 and Figure 2.16. In addition, the
suspension systems that uses the links for lateral support, i.e. leaf spring link or angled upper
four-link, would also be simpler than having additional components, i.e. Panhard-rod or Watt-
link.

Robustness
Hydraulic hoses and couplings occasionally breaks because of the high internal pressures. The
mechanical FWD has therefore been considered more robust. No comparison between the
suspension arrangement has been made.

Modularity
As the hydraulic FWD would be able to be configured with all chassis heights compared to the
mechanical FWD which is only possible with high chassis height, the hydraulic FWD was
considered to have better modularity.

54
New Design, Redesign and Purchasing of Components
A spreadsheet with expected components that needs to be new designed, redesigned or
purchased for every concept is presented in Appendix E – Concept Components. The hydraulic
FWD parts are from Table 2.5.

Software Changes
Introducing a hydraulic FWD would require new software functions [17]. This means that the
mechanical FWD is cheaper with respect to software.

Certificate Needed
The hydraulic FWD requires the brake disc to be modified, this means that the brake certificate,
i.e. Directive 71/320/EEC and Regulation (EC) No 661/2009, needs investigation. This could
consequently influence the whole vehicle type approval, WVTA.

Design Cost
When looking at the design cost, design of completely new parts was considered more
expensive than redesign. In general, this means that:

• Hydraulic FWD is more expensive than mechanical FWD,

• Leaf spring arrangement is cheaper than four-link arrangements,
• Panhard-rod is cheaper than Watt-link and angled upper four-link.

Assembly Cost
Introduction of hydraulic propulsion would require a lot of work to implement in assembly. It
would be the same for other suspension arrangement than the current but that is expected to be
less than for hydraulic propulsion. With respect to that, Concept 5 was regarded as the most
suitable concept from an assembly cost perspective.

Component Cost
According to the cost analysis made in the On-demand Master Thesis [17], the initial cost for
the mechanical and the hydraulic FWD is fairly similar. No conclusion of the difference
between the different suspension arrangement has been made.

Operation Cost
As seen in section 2.9 concepts with hydraulic FWD were estimated to have a lower operational
cost than the ones with mechanical drive systems. However, this was based on estimative
calculations and would hence require further work and verification for more certain results.

Maintenance Cost
No conclusion has been made regarding maintenance cost.

Market shares
All concepts are expected to increase Scania’s market shares because of the FWD with air
suspension option. However, the hydraulic FWD in particular, is something competitors offers
but not Scania. By introducing this, the potential to gain customers is even higher.

3.3.2 Half Time Presentation - Design Review

A half time presentation of the project was held 2nd of April 2019. During the presentation,
concepts 1-8 from section 3.2 were presented and discussed. Concerns, such as how tire
selection affect the suspension system, as well as how the air spring E-low performs
dynamically and in terms of height adjustment were discussed.

55
3.4 Concept Development
The concept development included a comprehensive comparison between the best scoring
concepts from section 3.3, i.e. Concept 1 and Concept 5. The areas investigated for the concepts
were an interference analysis, a force analysis and a roll gradient analysis.

3.4.1 Interference Analysis

An investigation with Catia v5 was conducted where interferences of the components were
identified.

Concept 1
When investigating Concept 1, the following parts were used:

a) Breakdown of truck A4x2NB.

b) Parts from On-demand FWD project [17].

The parts were opened in context, which is illustrated in Figure 3.9 and Figure 3.10.

Figure 3.9 Concept 1 Interference Study 1

56
 Figure 3.10 Concept 1 Interference Study 2

As discussed in subsection 3.3.1 and Appendix E – Concept Components, the components that
needs to be redesigned to fit Scania’s front axle are:

I. Steering knuckle
II. Wheel hub
III. Brake disc

However, geometrically, the air suspension system can remain unchanged if the On-demand
FWD concept of using the current non-driven axle is chosen. If the full MAN front axle
configuration would be used, this would be a different case, thus requiring a change in the
interface between torque rod bracket and wheel axle.

Another thing discussed in the On-demand FWD master thesis was the position of the cooler.
Ideally, hydraulic hoses should not pass by hot components. The initial concept of placing it
near the exhaust aftertreatment system is therefore not preferable [17].

Concept 5
When investigating the feasibility of using current Scania parts for designing Concept 5, the
following parts where used:

a) Breakdown of truck A4x4HA, drum brakes with EBS.

b) Breakdown of suspension from A4x2EB, disc brakes with EBS.

The two breakdowns were opened in context, which is illustrated in Figure 3.11 and Figure
3.12.

57
 Figure 3.11 Concept 5 Interference Study 1

Here, the air suspension crossmember and the front axle were situated very close to each
other. This meant that the two components interfered when the suspension was compressed.
Overall, the air suspension system fit well on the driven front axle.

Figure 3.12 Concept 5 Interference Study 2

Furthermore, the shock absorber from breakdown a) was interfering with the torque rod
bracket, see Figure 3.13.

58
 Figure 3.13 Concept 5 Interference Study 3

The shock absorber was also close to the drag link, see Figure 3.12. In addition, the rod end
on the drag link, which mounts to the steering knuckle was interfering with the air bellow
when the suspension was compressed, see Figure 3.14.

Figure 3.14 Concept 5 Interference Study 4

59
The mounting interface on the driven and the non-driven axle was quite different. The driven
axle used two angled U-bolts for clamping the leaf spring while the non-driven had four vertical
bolts to the torque rod bracket. In addition, the guide pin for the air spring link was bigger than
for the leaf spring, meaning that the hole in the driven axle was too small. This is illustrated in
Figure 3.15.

Figure 3.15 Concept 5 Interference Study 5

In summary, the potential interferences or interface deviations were:

I. Crossmember – front axle

II. Shock absorber – torque rod bracket
III. Drag link – air bellow.
IV. Mounting interface suspension – front axle

One project requirement was to use the current wheel axle. Changes to other components is
therefore preferable. Meaning that the following parts should be redesigned:

I. Crossmember
II. Torque rod bracket or shock absorber bracket
III. Steering knuckle or drag link
IV. Torque rod bracket and air spring link

3.4.2 Force Analysis

When performing the force analysis, a comparison between an original A4x2EB, Concept 1
(A4x4EB) and Concept 5 (A4x4HB) was conducted. The aim was to evaluate the force
addition on the suspension from the driving torque on the front wheel as well as from the
increased lever arm due to drop centre height and wheel choice.

First of all, the wheel contact forces were calculated using the free body diagrams and
equations from subsection 2.1.2, i.e. with a two track vehicle model where the suspension was
regarded as rigid. The input parameters and the equations of motions are presented in
Appendix F – Force Analysis: Input Parameters and Appendix G – Force Analysis: EoMs

60
respectively. After calculating the wheel contact forces, the suspension mounting forces were
also calculated. All calculations are presented in Appendix H – Force Analysis: Matlab.

3.4.3 Roll Gradient Analysis

As discussed in subsection 3.3.1, the front roll centre height is lower for Concept 5 compared
to a leaf suspended AWD truck. To investigate how sensitive a truck would be for tipping with
Concept 5, the roll angle gradient, 𝑘∅ , was calculated using [9],
𝑑∅ 𝑚𝑠 ∙ℎ𝑒
𝑘∅ = 𝑑𝑦̈ = 𝑘 (12)
𝑠 −𝑚𝑠 ∙𝑔∙ℎ𝑒

where ms is the sprung mass, ks is the summed roll stiffness of the front and rear axle and he is
the vertical distance from the roll centre axis to CoG, calculated using,

𝑐∙𝑅𝑅𝐶𝐻+(𝑎𝑑−𝑐)∙𝐹𝑅𝐶𝐻
ℎ𝑒 = 𝑓 − (12)
𝑎𝑑

The roll stiffness values as well as the rear roll centre height were acquired from Scania
Vehicle Optimizer and the sprung mass was simplified to the total mass. The input parameters
are presented in Table 3.5.

Table 3.5 Roll Gradient Analysis Input Parameters

Note that the FRCH is likely to be even lower for the air suspension configurations, as discussed
in subsection 2.7.3.

61
 4 RESULTS
The results are presented in this chapter.

4.1 The Proposed Designs

Concept 5 scored best during the concept evaluations and had good mechanical properties.
Hydraulic systems such as Concept 1 were estimated to require considerable more work to be
implemented than mechanical systems. On the other hand it would allow better modularity and
payload for the costumer, thus qualifying for a better longer term solution.

4.1.1 Redesign Suggestions Concept 1

Since design suggestions was already discussed in the On-demand FWD master thesis [17] to
some extent. Further design work on Concept 1 was not focused on.

4.1.2 Redesign Suggestions Concept 5

Concept 5 required redesign to be applicable with the driven front axle. The priority during the
redesigning phase was to ensure that larger and more significant components such as the axle
and frame remains in their current shape, and instead modify smaller and less significant
components, such as the crossmember, torque rod bracket and the steering knuckle.

I. Crossmember
As illustrated in Figure 4.1, the current crossmember would require redesign to allow full
suspension displacement. The crossmember was initially designed to fit all chassis height and
is therefore quite low to make room for the engine with chassis height E-low. By redesigning it
for this particular configuration, it would not interfere with the engine or front axle.

Figure 4.1 Crossmember Concept

63
The axle in Figure 4.1 was positioned in its top most position to illustrate the collision between
the current crossmember and the front driven axle. The sketched concept on the other hand did
not interfere with the front axle.

II. Torque Rod Bracket or Shock Absorber Bracket

Since making the torque rod bracket smaller would influence its stiffness, moving the shock
absorber is instead preferable. This can be done by either changing the top or the bottom shock
absorber bracket, alternatively a combination of these. An example of how the bottom bracket
could be designed is presented in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2 Bottom Shock Absorber Brackets

The bracket to the left is the original and the one to right is the concept. By using the concept
bracket, the shock absorber did not interfere with the torque rod bracket or the drag link for any
front axle displacement height. See Figure 4.3 which has the front axle in driving height.

Figure 4.3 Bottom Shock Absorber Bracket 2

64
To optimize the movement of the shock absorber and to keep equal clearance to the drag link
and torque rod bracket, the top bracket might need adjustments as well.

III. Steering Knuckle or Drag Link

An interference between the air bellow and the steering knuckle was identified in section 3.4.
This argued for a redesign of the steering knuckle where the steering arm is shorter.

The interaction dynamically between the steering knuckle and drag link has not been analysed.
Changing the dimensions of the steering knuckle would most likely affect the steering
properties of the truck, which implies that the drag link and the steering gear probably also
would need modification to satisfy the steering requirements.

An alternative to redesigning the steering knuckle would be to move the air bellows inwards.
Thus requiring redesign of front axle mounting as well as design of a crossbeam that allows the
bellow to be mounted dislocated from the chassis.

IV. Torque Rod Bracket and Air Spring Link

The size of the torque rod bracket and its mounting holes were adjusted to suit the driven axle.
As seen in Figure 4.4, represented by the red axes, the mounting holes were not perpendicular
to the top plane.

Figure 4.4 Torque Rod Bracket Mounting Concept

An alternative to using regular bolts could be to make grooves in the torque rod bracket to fit
U-bolts, similar to the ones in Figure 4.5.

65
 Figure 4.5 U-bolt Mounting

In addition, the driven front axle has a different caster angle compared to the non-driven. The
mating surface on the torque rod bracket should therefore be machined with an angle according
to the wheel axle, see Figure 4.6.

Figure 4.6 Torque Rod Bracket Assembly View

Alternatively, the air spring link could be designed with non-parallel mating surfaces on the top
and bottom side. The air spring link nevertheless have to have a smaller centre guide pin to fit
the current wheel axle.

66
4.2 Force Analysis
The force analysis illustrated large force and moment differences between the original A4x2EB
truck and the different concepts. Concept 1 and the A4x2EB truck were calculated to have
similar vertical and lateral forces, but with large differences in regards to the longitudinal
forces and pitch moments. The most significant of these was the pitch moment during steady
state turning of the truck. It increased with around 405 % for Concept 1 compared to the
A4x2EB system. Concept 5 was calculated to have a lot higher loads and moments than the
A4x2EB truck. Especially, during constant acceleration and steady state turning load cases
where the increase in the moments were calculated to around 532 % and 1143 % respectively.
The complete results of this force analysis are presented in Appendix I – Force Analysis:
Results.

4.3 Roll Gradient Analysis

For a given lateral acceleration, Concept 1 (A4x4EB) will roll equally to a A4x2EB truck,
because of unchanged suspension and chassis. Concept 5 (A4x4HB) on the other hand will roll
6% more than A4x2EB and between -2% and 17% more than an original A4x4HA depending
on spring and ARB types, see Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Roll Angle Gradient Result

Note that the Roll Angle Gradient Concept 5 Relative Increase in Table 4.1 is how much the
roll angle gradient for Concept 5 would increase compared to the respective original measure.

67
 5 CONCLUSION
The conclusions are presented in this chapter.

• There is a demand for FWD trucks with air suspension. This type of configuration would
be used for trucks primarily driven on tarmac, such as airport trucks, firefighting trucks,
tipper trucks, timber trucks and heavy haulers.

• The current suspension designs have been presented in sections 2.7 and 2.8. The front
air suspension uses a centre mounted air bellow on top of an air spring link. The lateral
and longitudinal forces are taken by the air spring link. A torque rod is used for further
longitudinal and pitch support. The front leaf suspension uses the leaf spring for vertical
compliance and lateral and longitudinal support. The rear air-suspension has a thicker
air spring link under the wheel axle, mounted to the chassis in one point and to an air
bellow in one point. The lateral and longitudinal forces are taken by the air spring link.

• The current front and rear air suspension systems has performed great and has been well
received by customers.

• There are several competitors/bodybuilders that offers FWD and air suspension on their
trucks. However only three competitors/bodybuilder has been found that offers FWD
combined with front air suspension. First of all, Tergberg Techniek which mounts
hydraulic FWD on Volvo trucks. Secondly, Tatra Trucks which mainly builds off-road
trucks with backbone chassis. Finally, Kelderman which mounts four-link air
suspension on several different trucks such as Ford, RAM and Mercedes.

• Several requirements has been identified and are presented in Appendix E.

• Front air suspension cannot be implemented using current Scania parts. However, by
either introducing hydraulic FWD (Concept 1) or redesigning the crossmember, shock
absorber bracket, steering knuckle, torque rod bracket and air spring link (Concept 5),
there is a possibility for this to be implemented.

• The driving torque increased the suspension loads of the system. Changing from
A4x2EB to A4x4EB with hydraulic FWD (Concept 1) illustrated this behaviour. The
largest increase in force and moment appeared during the load case of constant velocity
while turning.

• Decreased wheel axle drop together with larger wheels, as for Concept 5 A4x4HB, the
suspension forces increased. Especially the pitch moments for acceleration and steady
state turning.

• The roll gradient for A4x4EB (Concept 1) was unchanged compared to A4x4HB
(Concept 5) which was generally increased. To maintain the current lowest possible roll
gradient for A4x4HB AWD trucks, an additional, stiffer ARB has to be introduced.

69
 6 DISCUSSION
The discussion is presented in this chapter.

Currently, it exists a demand for AWD and FWD driven trucks with air suspension. Primarily
for on-road applications, where adjustability and driver comfort are prioritized over system
robustness. As seen in section 2.11, the demand of FWD is not decreasing and there is a
significant shift from rear air suspended trucks to full air suspended trucks. It is therefore likely
that trucks with FWD and rear air suspension will make a similar shift if full air suspension was
selectable for Scania customers. Since only one original equipment manufacturer and two
bodybuilders is offering full air suspended AWD trucks, there should be room for earning
market shares for Scania.

Many of the trucks produced today at Scania is connected to a cloud. This cloud collects and
stores data from these trucks. This enables Scania to see long-term trends and improve their
trucks. Air suspension systems does not only enable driver adjustability, but also allows more
data collection from sensors than the leaf spring systems. This could be a reason for the air
suspension systems being used more in the future. However, as discussed earlier, not all AWD
trucks can make this transformation from leaf to air suspended systems with the current air
suspension systems available today. For example, leaf spring systems excels for military trucks
and mining trucks where there are higher demands for robustness. A transformation of these
trucks would thereby be difficult. Consequently, if new air suspension systems that were more
durable, robust and cheap were introduced, would perhaps enable this transformation of the off-
road trucks to transpire.

The current air suspension arrangement on Scania trucks has worked well in operation. There
should therefore be small incentive for drastic change in the suspension arrangement for a small
volume of trucks. Both Concept 1 and Concept 5 are modifications of the current system and
could potentially be implemented. However, Concept 1 requires a lot of new design to introduce
hydraulic FWD. Concept 5 can use the same arrangement as current design but needs smaller
adjustments on almost every part of the suspension. This means that regardless of concept, a lot
of new components have to be introduced, thus requiring a high cost. Nonetheless, an extensive
cost analysis of these concepts has yet to be conducted.

Concept 5 was identified as the most suitable short-term system for the AWD/FWD trucks with
full air suspension. However, implementing Concept 5 would only allow air spring height E-
low since Normal and Low would increase the chassis height significant. On the other hand, the
demand on load handling, for instance for exchangeable load carriers, might be limited for this
application, consequently the air spring height E-low can be sufficient. Despite, Concept 1 could
be the most suitable long-term solution since it enables all suspension heights. Another option
for enabling all chassis height on non-hydraulic FWD trucks would be to use an independent
suspension system. The independent suspension would allow the differential to be stationary
and therefore not need as much clearance to the engine.

Concept 1 and Concept 5 experienced higher loads than the original A4x2EB system during the
force calculations. The largest differences were the pitch moments. This is an indication that
the torque rod requires further analysis, and most likely also re-designing. Other sensitive
components that perhaps would require re-design would be the air spring links and related
brackets. However, extensive structural analyses and/or real life testing of these components
have yet to be performed.

71
The roll gradient for Concept 5 is comparable with current AWD trucks without ARB, not
considering that the front roll centre height might be lower for air suspension arrangement as
discussed in subsection 2.7.3. Since the estimated application for the full air suspended AWD
trucks is mainly on public roads, the demand on lower roll gradient is probably substantial.
Therefore, introducing an ARB with higher stiffness is recommended. However, doing this
would require more investigation of the understeer gradient as well as MBS of the roll
properties.

72
 7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The future recommendations are presented in this chapter.

For future work of front air suspension system on AWD trucks, there are several things to
consider. First of all, a comprehensive cost analysis has to be conducted, preferably for both
the presented concepts. Secondly, if Concept 5 would be chosen, further design of all new
components as well as more investigation of the vehicle dynamics is needed, for instance in
terms of MBS. Especially with respect to cornering behavior regarding steering and roll
properties.

Moreover, the air spring link, torque rod and their surrounding components have to be
thoroughly analyzed and optimized to ensure that they can endure the increased loading, more
specifically nonlinear structural analysis of the air spring link is necessary. Furthermore, if the
air spring link is made stiffer to handle the increased load, the requirement of 75% of vertical
load taken by the air bellow, needs to be evaluated.

The steering components such as the steering knuckle, drag link and steering gear, needs further
evaluation to verify the steering properties. In addition, the potential stiffer ARB would most
certainly also affect the understeer gradient.

Finally, there might be additional certification affected that has not been discussed in this study,
that could have significant impact on the future product development.

73
 8 REFERENCES

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78
 APPENDIX A – WBS
This appendix presents the WBS of the project.

The WBS is illustrated in Figure A 1.

Figure A 1 WBS

i
 APPENDIX B – ROLL CENTRE EVALUATION
This appendix presents the method used for evaluating the distance SRC.

The roll centre and the distance SRC is illustrated in Figure A 2.

Figure A 2 SRC Evaluation

iii
 APPENDIX C – QFD
This appendix presents the system requirements constructed during the project.

The system requirements were compiled into a QFD matrix presented below in Table A 1.

Table A 1 Quality Function Deployment Matrix

Note: The abbreviations used for the different verification methods are presented in
nomenclature chapter of this report. The beige requirements are regarded as must have and
the green ones as nice to have.

v
 APPENDIX D – FMT
This appendix presents the FMT constructed during the project.

The FMT is presented in Figure A 3 to Figure A 6.

Figure A 3 Function Means Tree (entire)

vii
Figure A 4 Function Means Tree (Top-level)

viii
Figure A 5 Function Means Tree (Propulsion)

ix
Figure A 6 Function Means Tree (Suspension)

x
 APPENDIX E – CONCEPT COMPONENTS
This appendix presents needed components for the new concepts.

Table A 2 includes all the new components that the eight concepts would require, in terms of either new design, redesign or purchasing.

Table A 2 Concept Components

xi
 APPENDIX F – FORCE ANALYSIS: INPUT PARAMETERS
This appendix presents the input parameters for the force calculations.

The input parameters are presented in Table A 3.

Table A 3 Input parameters

The velocity was estimated to 30 km/h because of the limitation of the hydraulic system. The maximum brake acceleration was taken from Beräkning
av framaxellaster vid bromsning C102_145 [67]. The brake bias was estimated to 60% front and 40% rear. The maximum acceleration, the masses, Cd,
A, ρ, RR and vehicle geometry measurements were extracted from vehicle optimizer. The turning radius was chosen to maximize lateral acceleration
without tipping over.

xiii
 APPENDIX G – FORCE ANALYSIS: EOMS
This appendix presents the equations of motions for the force calculations.

Free Body Diagrams Wheel Axle

The equations in this appendix were based on the free body diagrams presented in Figure A 7-
Figure A 9

Figure A 7 FBD of Wheel Axle ( y-z)

Figure A 8 FBD of Wheel Axle (x-z)

xv
Figure A 9 FBD of Wheel Axle ( x-y)

xvi
General Full Vehicle Equations of Motion

xvii
Constant Velocity - Equations of Motion

Constant Acceleration - Equations of Motion

Constant Deacceleration - Equations of Motion

Constant Turning - Equations of Motion

xviii
xix
Wheel Axle Equations of Motions

xx
xxi
 APPENDIX H – FORCE ANALYSIS: MATLAB
This appendix presents the created Matlab scripts for force calculations.

Main Matlab Script – runcalculations.m

clear all, close all, clc

VehicleForces()
SuspensionForces()

disp('completed')

Matlab Script For Full Vehicle Force Calculations – VehicleForces.m

clear all, close all, clc

%% -----------Read Vehicle Properties and Geometry----------- %%

filename = 'Force analysis.xlsx';
mat = xlsread(filename,'D5:O23');
t = num2cell(mat);
sheet = 1;

%% --------------1 Constant Velocity --------------- %%

index=1;
% Assign variables
[xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

% Drag force [N]

D=(Cd*rho*(xp^2)*Area)/2;

A=[2 2 0;
2*Cr 2*Cr -2;
0 2*ad 0];

B=[(m_truck + m_fw)*g;
-D;
D*e + (m_truck+m_fw)*g*c];

xx=A\B;

N1=xx(1);
N2=xx(1);
N3=xx(2);
N4=xx(2);
F1=0;
F2=0;
F3=xx(3);
F4=xx(3);
R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;
L1=0;
L2=0;
L3=0;
L4=0;
Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

%Forces for turning calculations

Fc42=F3;
N1c42=N1;
N3c42=N3;

xlRange = 'D24';
xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)

%% --------------5,9 Constant Velocity--------------- %%

for index=[5 9];

% Assign variables
[xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

% Drag force [N]

D=(Cd*rho*(xp^2)*Area)/2;

A=[2 2 0;
2*Cr 2*Cr -4;
0 2*ad 0];

xxiii
 B=[(m_truck + m_fw)*g;
-D;
D*e + (m_truck+m_fw)*g*c];

xx=A\B;

N1=xx(1);
N2=xx(1);
N3=xx(2);
N4=xx(2);
F1=xx(3);
F2=xx(3);
F3=xx(3);
F4=xx(3);
R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;
L1=0;
L2=0;
L3=0;
L4=0;
Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

%Forces for turning calculations

Fc44=F1;
N1c44=N1;
N3c44=N3;
if index==5
xlRange = 'H24';
elseif index==9
xlRange = 'L24';
end

xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)
end
%% --------------2 Constant Acceleration --------------- %%

index=2;
% Assign variables
[xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

% Drag force [N]

D=(Cd*rho*(xp^2)*Area)/2;

A=[2 2 0;
2*Cr 2*Cr -2;
0 2*ad 0];
B=[(m_truck+m_fw)*g;
-(m_truck+m_trailer)*xpp-D;
D*e+(m_truck+m_fw)*g*c+m_truck*xpp*f+m_trailer*xpp*i];
xx=A\B;

N1=xx(1);
N2=xx(1);
N3=xx(2);
N4=xx(2);
F1=0;
F2=0;
F3=xx(3);
F4=xx(3);
R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;
L1=0;
L2=0;
L3=0;
L4=0;
Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

xlRange = 'E24';
xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)

%% --------------6,10 Constant Acceleration --------------- %%

for index=[6 10]

% Assign variables
[xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

% Drag force [N]

D=(Cd*rho*(xp^2)*Area)/2;

xxiv
 A=[2 2 0;
2*Cr 2*Cr -4;
0 2*ad 0];
B=[(m_truck+m_fw)*g;
-(m_truck+m_trailer)*xpp-D;
D*e+(m_truck+m_fw)*g*c+m_truck*xpp*f+m_trailer*xpp*i];
xx=A\B;

N1=xx(1);
N2=xx(1);
N3=xx(2);
N4=xx(2);
F1=xx(3);
F2=xx(3);
F3=xx(3);
F4=xx(3);
R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;
L1=0;
L2=0;
L3=0;
L4=0;
Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

if index==6
xlRange = 'I24';
elseif index==10
xlRange = 'M24';
end

xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)
end

%% --------------3,7,11 Constant Deacceleration--------------- %%

for index=[3 7 11]

% Assign variables
[xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

% Drag force [N]

D=(Cd*rho*(xp^2)*Area)/2;

A=[2 2 0;
2*Cr 2*Cr -4;
0 2*ad 0];
B=[(m_truck+m_fw)*g;
-(m_truck+m_trailer)*xpp-D;
D*e+(m_truck+m_fw)*g*c+m_truck*xpp*f+m_trailer*xpp*i];
xx=A\B;

N1=xx(1);
N2=xx(1);
N3=xx(2);
N4=xx(2);
%60/40 brake bias
F1=4*xx(3)*0.3;
F2=4*xx(3)*0.3;
F3=4*xx(3)*0.2;
F4=4*xx(3)*0.2;
R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;
L1=0;
L2=0;
L3=0;
L4=0;
Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

if index==3
xlRange = 'F24';
elseif index==7
xlRange = 'J24';
elseif index==11
xlRange = 'N24';
end

xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)
end
%% --------------4 Constant Turning --------------- %%

index=4;
% Assign variables

xxv
 [xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

CF=(m_truck+m_fw)*(xp^2/R);
F1=0;
F2=0;
F3=Fc42; %From constant velocity
F4=Fc42; %-------||---------

N1=N1c42+CF*(f/b)*((ad-c)/ad);
N2=N1c42-CF*(f/b)*((ad-c)/ad);
N3=N3c42+CF*(f/b)*(c/ad);
N4=N3c42-CF*(f/b)*(c/ad);
R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;
CFf=CF*((ad-c)/ad);
CFr=CF*(c/ad);
L1=CFf*N1/(N1+N2);
L2=CFf*N2/(N1+N2);
L3=CFr*N3/(N3+N4);
L4=CFr*N4/(N3+N4);
Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

xlRange = 'G24';
xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)

%% --------------8,12 Constant Turning --------------- %%

for index=[8 12]

% Assign variables
[xp, xpp, R, m_truck, m_fw, m_trailer, g, Cd, rho, Area,...
Cr, a, b, c, ad, d, e, f, i]=deal(t{:,index});

CF=(m_truck+m_fw)*(xp^2/R);
F1=Fc44;
F2=Fc44;
F3=Fc44;
F4=Fc44;

N1=N1c44+CF*(f/b)*((ad-c)/ad);
N2=N1c44-CF*(f/b)*((ad-c)/ad);
N3=N3c44+CF*(f/b)*(c/ad);
N4=N3c44-CF*(f/b)*(c/ad);

R1=Cr*N1;
R2=Cr*N2;
R3=Cr*N3;
R4=Cr*N4;

CFf=CF*((ad-c)/ad);
CFr=CF*(c/ad);

L1=CFf*N1/(N1+N2);
L2=CFf*N2/(N1+N2);
L3=CFr*N3/(N3+N4);
L4=CFr*N4/(N3+N4);

Result={N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 R1 R2 R3 R4 L1 L2 L3 L4 D}';

if index==8
xlRange = 'K24';
elseif index==12
xlRange = 'O24';
end

xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)
end

disp('done')

Matlab Script For Suspension Force Calculations – SuspensionForces.m

clear all, close all, clc

%% -----------Read Vehicle Forces & Suspension Geometry----------- %%

filename = 'Force analysis.xlsx';
mat = xlsread(filename,'D24:O44');
mat=[mat(1,:);mat(2,:);mat(5,:);mat(6,:);mat(9,:);mat(10,:);mat(13,:);mat(14,:);mat(18,:);mat(19,:);mat(20,
:);mat(21,:)];
sheet = 1;

N1=mat(1,:);

xxvi
N2=mat(2,:);
F1=mat(3,:);
F2=mat(4,:);
R1=mat(5,:);
R2=mat(6,:);
L1=mat(7,:);
L2=mat(8,:);

DC=mat(9,:);
RR=mat(10,:);
j=mat(11,:);
b=mat(12,:);

V2=( N2.*(b+j)./2 + (L1+L2).*(RR-DC) - N1.*(b-j)./2 )./j;

V1=N1+N2-V2;
H1=L1;
H2=L2;
T2=( -(F1+F2-R1-R2).*(b-j)./2 + (F2-R2).*b )./j;
T1=F1+F2-R1-R2-T2;
M1=(F1-R1).*(RR-DC);
M2=(F2-R2).*(RR-DC);
Result=[V1;V2;H1; H2; T1; T2; M1; M2];
Result=num2cell(Result);
xlRange = 'D45';
xlswrite(filename,Result,sheet,xlRange)

disp('done')

xxvii
 APPENDIX I – FORCE ANALYSIS: RESULTS
This appendix presents the calculated vehicle and suspension forces.

Table A 4 presents the calculated forces.

Table A 4 Calculated Forces

Note that the largest force differences are highlighted in red.

xxix
xxx