Studying the Effect of Caster Angle on Wheel Parameters by Dynamic Analysis using Adams Car Software

In modern era, steer ability and handling characteristics of the vehicle have become major aspects. Providing comfort. To the driver by reducing steering effort without any compromise in steer ability and handling of the vehicle with ride comfort is a major Concern for automakers. Evaluating handling and steering characteristics of a vehicle in a virtual environment with the help of multi-body system packages saves product development time and cost. The main intention is to improve the steer ability and handling of the vehicle by avoiding the steering pull and wheel wandering problems for high speed cornering and straight-line stability. This paper discusses the dynamic effect of caster angle on the steering and suspension system. Automatic dynamics of mechanical system (MSC ADAMS) has become an important feature of roadside hardware design and analysis in recent year.so the analysis is carried out using the existing model in MSC ADAMS\CAR and editing the parameters as per standard car data. Using this model, maneuvers over standard track with initial speed of 100kmph for different values of caster angle at front wheel keeping the rear caster angle zero parameters, were simulated. The steering effort, steering wheel return ability and the lateral forces produced by the tires were obtained in order to predict the Behavior of the vehicle for different wheel geometry parameters. It can be seen from the results that positive caster angles improve the steering wheel return ability but increase the steering effort. Higher steering axle inclination (Sai) angles help in improving the steering wheel return ability and decreasing the steering effort as well. Negative camber angles help in producing higher lateral forces to improve the corner ability of the vehicle. Toe-in angles help in improving the straight-line stability whereas toe-out angles help in improving the cornering.