CarSim Assists in Test Track Simulation & Design

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In a racing application, every nuance of the track – every bump, bank, ridge and curve – is designed to control speed while highlighting the technical skill of the drivers. In a testing application, however, the track can have totally different purposes.

“CarSim® 6 can create the simulations to tell you how your vehicle or system will perform on any test track,” explained David Hall, Mechanical Simulation Corporation senior development and consulting engineer. “But CarSim can also assist in constructing the actual track that will best evaluate your designs in a variety of settings.

“In many settings, particularly when testing high performance vehicles, vehicle reactions can be much more nuanced than those of the family sedan,” Hall said. “We typically use CarSim in the lab to predict the reactions of vehicles in ‘traditional’ highway settings. But we can also use CarSim to design and validate the tracks themselves to create the settings that will test a wide range of vehicle attributes.

“It’s very cost effective when you’re able to spend your precious track time measuring very specific properties of your vehicles, particularly when you know how the vehicle will perform on the ‘routine’ tests,” he said.

Mechanical Simulation worked with one automaker in the design of a high performance test track to measure vehicle limit performance at various speeds and levels of acceleration. CarSim was selected for this operation in order to assure validation of the project prior to construction. “In this application, CarSim helped to verify vertical acceleration over several cresting curves,” Hall said. The result is a challenging track that meets the automaker’s vehicle dynamics requirements while providing insight into various acceleration and speed tests.

CarSim is Mechanical Simulation’s software package for simulating the dynamic vehicle behavior of cars, light trucks and utility vehicles. CarSim animates simulated tests and generates over 500 output variables that can be plotted and analyzed. The vehicle and chassis settings can also be optimized with any DOE (design of experiments) software. Engineers in design, development, testing and planning activities all use CarSim.

Mechanical Simulation Corporation is a technology leader in the development and distribution of advanced software used to simulate vehicle performance under a wide variety of conditions. The company was established in 1996, and from its Ann Arbor, Mich., headquarters provides car and truck simulation software, training and ongoing support to more than 50 OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, and over 60 universities and government research groups worldwide. For more information, visit www.carsim.com.