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A comprehensive exercise for generation of wheel load database and spectrum of different categories of vehicles was carried out. The vehicles have been chosen so as to represent the best possible variation of vehicles all over the country. Dedicated Wheel Force Transducers (WFT) for all corners of all test vehicles have been utilized along with a host of traditional transducers at identified locations of the test vehicles. An exhaustive survey and data acquisition exercise has also been carried out in different geographical regions of India in order to determine the various attributes related to various types of vehicles, type of usage, driving patterns etc. Instrumented test vehicles have been run on identified routes and regions as deciphered from the survey, as well as on proving grounds. Detailed analysis of the test data from different categories vehicles has been carried out to determine the variation of wheel forces, moments and other vehicle durability parameters.

Suspension development is one of the key steps in a complete vehicle development program. Computer simulation and analysis tools such as Multi Body Dynamics (MBD) simulation are used to refine initial concept and suspension parameters. Later on when a physical prototype is available the suspension system can be experimentally optimized at vehicle level. In this paper a new methodology is proposed which integrates virtual and experimental tools so that design, development and validation of the suspension system is carried out in the early phase of the vehicle development cycle with actual suspension components and without the need of a vehicle prototype. With this new approach, the design of any critical suspension components such as dampers can be optimized at the vehicle level. The new approach consists of combining the actual physical components on loading rig in closed loop with vehicle dynamic model running in real time.