Comparisons of dynamic behavior of 3-wheeled tilting vehicles by numerical simulations

Abstract

The car is a main means of transportation all over the world. However, many people drive a car when they travel a short distance alone, that is inefficient in cost and space. Then, personal mobility vehicle (PMV), which is one or two-seater and has high environmental performance, is recently gathering attention. We focus on the three-wheeled vehicle with leaning mechanism called Narrow Tilting Vehicle (NTV) or narrow tilting three-wheeled (NTTW). Leaning mechanism, which gives tires degree of freedom, has an effect of stable cornering in the case of short tread width vehicle. To compere the motion of each leaning mechanism, we model the two types of NTV. One has two front frame which are linked to vehicle body by the arm and rotating respectively around the joint. The other one has a front frame that has two tires connected by the link. We derived equation of motion by referring to Sharp’s 4 DOF two-wheeled vehicle model, and carried out the three kinds of numerical analysis, eigenvalue analysis, modal analysis and running simulation. Through eigenvalue and modal analysis, we find out that NTVs have the same modes as Sharp’s 4 DOF model does, and they have the characteristic mode which vibrates steering and leaning mechanism. By running simulation, NTVs required larger steering torque than two-wheeled vehicle when the vehicle turn at the same angle.