Development of an innovative test machine for tyre, wheel and suspension systems for automotive and industrial vehicles

Reliability and efficiency of automotive and industrial vehicles are strongly affected by the behaviour of the components involved in the interaction with the ground. For this reason, components like tyres, wheels and suspension systems are physically tested, for performance and durability assessment. Anyway, standard test machines are generally designed for testing only one specific component.The aim of this work is the design of an innovative test machine, able to perform different kinds of tests, for tyre, wheel and suspension system components, on a unique bench. The machine is a flat track type, better fit than traditional drum types in simulating real tyre-to-ground contact conditions. The core of the machine is a Gough-Stewart platform, where the flat track is fixed, which is moved by six hydraulic actuators to reproduce multiple work configurations, for extended time periods or numerous test block repetitions. After the preliminary design phase, the machine components were subjected to topology optimization and modal analysis by FEM, to reduce weights and avoid any issues related to the expected working frequencies. Given the quality of the results achieved, currently, the software design for closed-loop control configuration is under development, for the machine prototype next construction.