2009 Volume 3 Issue 3 Pages 429-440
During the last decade, many new technical solutions dedicated to the comfort of automotive vehicle's drivers have raised, like Electrical Power Steering (EPS). To fulfill the more and more demanding requirements in terms of vibration and acoustics, the dynamic behavior of the whole steering is studied. The system is divided into dedicated finite elements (FE) describing the whole steering. The stress was first put on the gears models (worm gear and rack-and-pinion) and their anti-backlash systems as they have been identified as potential vibration sources. Mechanical non-linearities (clearances, non-linear stiffness) of the mechanical system are taken into account in these models. Then, this model allows simulating the transient response of the system to an input excitation. Each developed element is validated using a fitted experimental test bench. Then, the general model is correlated the same way. Hence models can be used to study the dynamic behavior of EPS systems or sub-systems.
