Abstract:
This paper designs a kind of independent front air suspension of 7 meters minibus in China according to Toyota Coaster. With the data of front air suspension of sample vehicle, we established hard point coordinate of virtual kingpin double-wishbone front air suspension. Then in order to get a reasonable trajectory of guiding mechanism, the virtual prototype of front air suspension was built by ADAMS software which is used to analyze the characteristic of the curve of front wheel alignment angle and front lateral slippage with wheel moving up and down. The three-dimensional model of the suspension assembly was designed by means of SolidWorks software. The suspension was trial-produced and mounted on sample-vehicle. On the basis of GB/T6323-2014 for sample vehicle, three types of test on controllability and stability, including steering returnability, cornering performance or steady state yaw response test and steering portability, were carried out in China. According to QC/T 480-1999, vehicle handling stability was evaluated with combined score which is the average of the three test. The score of turning left was 87.7, while the score of turning right was 90.5. The result indicates that test vehicle has good steering returnability, excellent steering portability and steady-state cornering performance. Therefore, the suspension designed has an excellent performance.