OPTIMIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL TRACTOR CAB SUSPENSION USING THE EVOLUTION METHOD

The use of cab suspensions on agricultural tractors increases the poss ibilities to reduce the vibration load on the driver within the limits imposed by the major constraint, i.e. the available travel space. Thi s paper describes a model for optimization of parameters describing th e characteristics of a passive nonlinear cab suspension. The optimizat ion method is based on an evolution algorithm. The objective has been to minimize the total vibration load on the driver. The studies perfor med show that the method is a very useful tool for optimization of cab suspension characteristics. The absolute optima were not always found but the differences in the values of the objective function were smal l.