Establishing chassis reliability testing targets based on road roughness

A process for establishing chassis reliability testing targets, based on road roughness, is developed in this work. The testing target is determined from road profile and traffic measurements. The process is applicable to a variety of road types (from highways to gravel roads) and locations. Roughness levels are calculated via the International Roughness Index from each road profile. These roughness levels are combined with corresponding traffic volume measurements to develop the target roughness level. This target roughness level is used in selecting the target roads. These target roads are then the testing targets for durability test development and reliability predictions. The work establishes a new target development process that does not rely on specific response data from a vehicle. Chassis durability tests can be developed from a database of target roads, without costly acquisition of vehicle-specific response data.