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New demands for the European Market claimed a new medium duty truck. Aim was not only to comply with new legislations, but also achieve better driving comfort and dynamic characteristics. The development of a new cab suspension was the answer given by means of an international project executed by the Technology Development Center of Mercedes-Benz do Brasil (CDT) with support of other technical divisions of our Development Center in Germany. High-level Teamwork Brazil/Germany at all levels from project coordination down to the plant assembly line was the key to reach an outstanding result with an extra achievement of weight reduction. Complete integration of all involved collaborators in Brazil and in Germany proved to be the main reason to get at the high efficiency shown during the development tasks. This article presents a brief overview of the undertaken development steps together with the challenges and the solutions given to assure the success of the international teamwork.

A dynamic model of a truck was developed using a multi-body system (MBS) analysis software. Through this model the vibrations in the cab induced by the vehicle ride on a test track with known obstacles was simulated. Values of stiffness and damping of vehicle and cab suspensions were varied in order to give a higher comprehension of their influence in the vibration level of the cab.