Pushed by the new technologies that are hitting the automotive market, OEMs and Suppliers are increasingly dealing with the need to enhance product lifetime efficiency reducing development times and costs. Consequently, simulation is gaining more and more relevance and extensive vehicle testing campaign are leaving room to focused and optimized laboratory and dyno tests. In this scenario the ability to faithfully reproduce vehicle behaviour in a wide range of conditions is a key factor for systems development. Speaking about dyno testing a lot of significant improvements have already been achieved either in matter of procedures and controls. A step forward is represented by the expansion to include also lateral and longitudinal dynamics, integrating standard dyno operations with vehicle wheel dynamic loads application: as well-known their influence may not be negligible when disc deformation or pad position play a relevant role for certain NVH issues. A fully integrated dynamic system with actuators for longitudinal and lateral loads has been developed and installed on a Brembo dynamic bench in the frame of a cooperation with Link Engineering. Such device, targeted to be light and flexible in its setup and tuning, confirmed itself to be representative of vehicle actual behaviour and reliable for deeper investigations of NVH phenomena, as shown in some preliminary validation results.

Brembo S.p.A.: Dr.-Ing. Claudio Benini, Ing. Cristian Malmassari; Link Engineering Co: Ing. Frederico Fortunati