Dynamics of flexible multibody systems having rolling contact: Application of the wheel element to the dynamics of road vehicles

This paper presents the wheel on a surface as a special finite element for the description of the geometry of the rolling contact. The two-dimensional wheel and the general case of a thin disc on an arbitrary spatial surface are treated; they are suitable wheel models to investigate approximately the rolling contact phenomena in road vehicles. A procedure for formulating the equations of motion for flexible non-holonomic systems and their linearization is presented as well. The method is illustrated by the analysis of shimmy behaviour of a swivel wheel. As a road vehicle example the IAVSD benchmark problem of the Bombardier ILTIS vehicle is solved and some results are shown.