Automotive Chassis Testing Page 1 of 2

Bill Greco, Mechanical Engineer, Warrington, Pa. w2gre@verizon.net

There's a science to testing metal structures for rigidity and performance

under stress, The development of new testing methodologies is continuing at a
fast pace, aided by new technologies. For example, motion controllers have
been developed to support special capabilities for exerting forces on structures
that can deliver, in a very short time, the loads and movement that assemblies
would otherwise require an enormous amount of time.
Motion control electrical devices connected to hydraulic and electro-
mechanical actuators induce stresses and measure responses that would be
difficult to accomplish under actual real world conditions.
Consider the issues associated with testing an automotive chassis
for strength and reliability to road conditions. In the past, measuring
instruments were typically attached to a car's chassis, the car was run on the
road, and data was assessed. Between test sessions, the data was analyzed and
the chassis would be tweaked and tuned to change its driving characteristics.
Following this, the car was sent back out and the data was taken again.
It was difficult to optimize, because so many variables were changing at the same time.
It can also be time consuming and expensive to schedule "track time" to try out
differnet versions of the design.
A good way to test a chassis would be to do so in a controlled environment
where one can isolate the various factors causing stress and see how changes to the
chassis under test modify the system's response to different variables.

Some comapnies have been building automotive chassis testers for years.
Among the company's customers are the leading NASCAR and
Indy Racing League (IRL) teams. Test rigs on which race car chassis are
mounted and subjected to stresses to show how they perform, Each rig has
multiple actuators. The actuators can be moved individually, or they can be
synchronized to operate together.
To operate the actuators, a programmable motion controller is used.
Motion controllers have built-in support for: Curve following,
Position controling. Synchronization, and/or force limit of multiple motion.
Because motion controllers can output information on the conditions of the
motion that they produce, they make ideal data acquisition instruments as
well as controllers. A closed loop motion controller is used,
it makes decisions and adjusts con trol of the motion based on feedback
from sensors attached to the chasis. The test rig system uses eight motion
control axes for position control and force monitoring.
The controller can get its position inputs from transducers mounted on the
actuators at the wheels, or it can close the control loop using a voltage
from potentiometers attached to the shock absorbers. Both modes employ
force limiting using load cells to make sure that the motion doesn't bend the
frame. Information from the load cells can also be used by the motion
controller to allow the simulation of forces that are measured on the road and can
enable testing to see if there's any problems between components.
Jogging allows small adjustments in actuator motion conrol.
Use of a hydraulic cylinder at each wheel that can move the wheels independently
is standard operation. The cylinders can double as jacks to facilitate
under-car suspension adjustments.
Discrete moves between specific points are produced relative to a current location.
A PC only needs to send the points and PLC does all the motion control
work. Plus, because of its programmability, a motion controller can provide
the capability to add new test features.
To produce a motion "target" for the motion controller to follow,
a controller typically works with a program and a recording of the car's motion
It’s possible that up to 200,000 data points that a motion controller can
sequences through.
 Automotive Chassis Testing Page 2 of 2
Bill Greco, Warrington, Pa. w2gre@verizon.net

To produce a realistic simulation of the stresses encountered

in a typical trip. The motion can be sped up or slowed down to
change the speed of the simulated drive.
A motion program is composed of instructions that generate
smooth accelerations and decelerations according to mathematical
equations.
A motion controller connects to a human-machine interface (HMI)
which is implemented with a PC running control
and visualization programs from software.
Chasis tester’s and their customers are able to vary the speed
of the motion and reverse the motion. The motion can be frozen
at any point to capture data that would otherwise be impossible to capture
with the chassis moving using the old way of road testing.
It is possible to produce more realistic data on how a chassis responds
to road stress if the motion is slowed down. Customer’s are able to
run test files from varrying raceway’s and roads.
ln the age of toss away products new automotive components can be
engineered to operate for millions of cycles and offer better reliability
than has ever been obtained before.