Analysis of the Influence of Road Surface Microprofile on the Oscillations of the Center of Mass of a Vehicle Using SolidWorks Motion and MATLAB Simulink
Abstract
Analysis of the Influence of Road Surface Microprofile on the Oscillations of the Center of Mass of a Vehicle Using SolidWorks Motion and MATLAB Simulink
Incoming article date: 17.11.2025An integrated approach to the numerical study of forced oscillations of a vehicle moving over an uneven road surface is proposed. The method combines 3D parametric modeling in SolidWorks with spectral-correlation analysis in MATLAB/Simulink. A multibody CAD model of a vehicle with independent suspension for all wheels was developed, including the main frame, lever suspensions with nonlinear elastic-damping elements, wheels, and the powertrain. The road microprofile was formalized using a correlation function implemented as a random process in MATLAB and imported into SolidWorks as a spatial profile. Dynamic analysis was performed using the SolidWorks Motion module. The results show that the vehicle's suspension exhibits a filtering effect, attenuating high-frequency disturbances from the road and shifting the dominant frequency of the center of mass oscillations to a lower range (~0.4 Hz). The rapid decay of the autocorrelation function indicates effective damping. This approach allows for efficient virtual testing without costly physical experiments.
Keywords: vehicle dynamics, road microprofile, multibody modeling, SolidWorks Motion, MATLAB/Simulink, spectral analysis, autocorrelation function, suspension filtering effect, forced oscillations