An Alternative to the Roll Axis for Use in Commercial Vehicle Simulation

Vehicle dynamicists have frequently assumed that the roll motions of the sprung mass take place about a roll axis. Equations of motion based on this assumption must be expected to exhibit dynamic coupling, a significant complication in the case of digital computer simulations of multi-unit vehicles.

Digital simulations have been developed which, while preserving the physical character of the roll axis formulation, use further approximations to avoid the dynamic coupling. Validation exercises have been performed which demonstrate the accuracy of this methodology.