TruckSim_Quick_Start

Mechanical Simulation http://www.carsim.com TruckSim Quick Start Guide Version 7 www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete NOTICE This manual describes software that is furnished under a license agreement and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such agreement. BikeSim, CarSim, TruckSim, VehicleSim, and VehSim are registered trademarks of Mechanical Simulation Corporation. © 1996 – 2008, Mechanical Simulation Corporation. Last updated March 2008. — ii — Table of Contents 1. Introduction........................................................................ 3 What is TruckSim Used For?.......................................................... 3 Computer Requirements ................................................................. 3 Notation Conventions in This Guide .............................................. 4 What Is Covered In This Guide ...................................................... 4 2. How TruckSim Works ....................................................... 5 Parts of TruckSim ........................................................................... 5 The TruckSim Database.................................................................. 6 Basic Operation of TruckSim ......................................................... 8 3. A Hands-On Overview of TruckSim......................................9 Start TruckSim................................................................................ 9 Mouse Clicks and On-Line Help .................................................. 12 Animator ....................................................................................... 13 Run a New Simulation .................................................................. 16 Make and Run a New Vehicle ...................................................... 19 View Plots..................................................................................... 23 Initialize the Vehicle ..................................................................... 26 4. More TruckSim Features .................................................28 Browse the Database..................................................................... 28 On-Line Help ................................................................................ 31 View More Plots ........................................................................... 32 Running an Animation without TruckSim.................................... 32 Import and Export Files ................................................................ 33 5. What’s Next .....................................................................36 Appendix — Animator Speed ............................................... 37 Windows Settings ......................................................................... 37 Graphic Card Driver ..................................................................... 38 www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete — 3 — 1. Introduction This guide is intended to help introduce you to TruckSim. You should have TruckSim installed on your computer, but no experience with using the software is assumed. If you do have some experience with TruckSim, it probably still be a good idea to go through this guide. It typically takes less than an hour and most people learn something even if they have already used TruckSim. What is TruckSim Used For? And what is it not used for? TruckSim predicts the performance of vehicles in response to driver control inputs (steering, throttle, bakes, clutch, and shifting) in a given environment (road geometry, coefficients of friction, wind). By performance, we mean vehicle motions, forces, and moments involved in acceleration, handling, and braking. Just about any test of a vehicle that would be conducted on a test track or road can be simulated. You can study changes in vehicle behavior that result from modifying any of the hundreds of vehicle parameters, or from specific control inputs, or from changes in the driving environment. You can add vehicle elements and systems like controls (ABS, traction control, stability control) to the vehicle and use them to develop control algorithms. On the other hand, TruckSim is not used to study noise, because noise study involves structural flexibility, acoustics, high frequency vibrations, and other factors not considered in TruckSim. Nor is it used to simulate individual component loads for durability analysis, because in most cases TruckSim models system behavior (e.g., total suspension motion), rather than component behavior (e.g., tie rod or control arm motions). TruckSim is not used for simulating the structural deformation in crashes, although it can be used to simulate the events that led up to a crash. For more information on applications, or help in deciding if TruckSim is the appropriate tool to study a particular problem, visit Mechanical Simulation’s website at www.carsim.com. Computer Requirements TruckSim runs on Intel PC’s (or equivalent) equipped with Windows 2000, XP, or Vista. It is self-contained, requiring no additional programs or tools to run. Note TruckSim math models can be extended using MATLAB® Simulink® (from The Math Works, Inc.) and other simulation tools. This www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 1 Introduction — 4 — introductory guide does not cover the topic of extending TruckSim models. Here are some general guidelines when considering computer hardware options: · Speed: Get a fast CPU. It is not essential to have the fastest available, but the vehicle models are computationally intensive and you will save time with a fast CPU. The amount of level-2 cache is also important. (More is better.) · Graphics: Get a graphics card that supports OpenGL 2.0 hardware acceleration, with at least 64 MB of video memory. · Storage: The vehicle simulation packages require about 500 MB of disk storage. With extensive use, you will need about 1 GB. Most modern PC’s have plenty of storage relative to these needs. Notation Conventions in This Guide The bulk of this guide is presented using a Times font. Other fonts and styles are used to convey special meanings. · The Courier font is used for names of computer files and folders. · Bold identifies items on the screen that you might click on—buttons, menu items, names of linked datasets, etc. Titles of screens are also shown in bold. · Underline is used to indicate text that you might type. For example, “In the speed field, type 160.” What Is Covered In This Guide Chapter 2 provides a short overview of how TruckSim works Chapter 3 provides step-by-step instructions that will take you about an hour to complete. You will learn how to interact with the TruckSim Animator and make plots of variables calculated by the TruckSim math models. You will navigate the TruckSim database and make some new runs. You will perform a “what if” exercise by taking a few minutes to define a new vehicle with a different center of gravity. You will run the new vehicle and see how its behavior compares with the original. In Chapter 4, you will get some hints for using more TruckSim features, including navigation and on-line help. You will see more about plotting, and will see how to use the animator outside of TruckSim for presentations or interactive use by colleagues who might not have TruckSim. You will also see how to transfer data between different TruckSim databases. www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete — 5 — 2. How TruckSim Works TruckSim shows how vehicles respond dynamically to inputs from the driver and the immediate environment (road and wind). It produces the same kinds of outputs that might be measured with physical tests involving instrumented vehicles. Parts of TruckSim TruckSim is composed primarily of four tightly integrated software modules, shown schematically in Figure 1. TruckSim browser & database VehicleSim solver Animator Plotter Figure 1. The four main components of TruckSim. Note This design is part of the VehicleSim architecture that is also used in other products from Mechanical Simulation Corporation, such as CarSim www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 2 How TruckSim Works — 6 — and BikeSim. Occasionally in this guide there will be references to VehicleSim in describing features that are shared with other products. 1. Data screens in the graphical database serve as your principal interface to TruckSim. They contain vehicle model parameters, control inputs, and simulation settings. More than 150 libraries of datasets are linked together to make up the TruckSim database. Each library has a different screen display to view the multiple datasets in that library. 2. VehicleSim solver programs use equations of motion from vehicle math models to calculate output variables. The process of performing these calculations is called making a simulation run or simply a run. 3. The surface animator (SurfAnim) shows the resultant vehicle motions. You can view the simulated motions, zoom in and out with a simulated camera, and interactively move around the simulated vehicle to change your point of view. Animated overlays show differences in behavior between different runs. 4. The Windows Engineering Plotter (WinEP) creates plots of vehicle variables. Use this tool to view any of the hundreds of variables computed by the simulation models. Plot any combination of variables and overlay plots from different runs or from experimental tests for comparison. The TruckSim Database All of the data used to describe vehicles and tests is organized into a database, contained in the TruckSim data folder. If you installed TruckSim using the standard options, it is in the folder c:\Documents and Settings\(Your username)\My Documents\TruckSim_Data. The database consists primarily of files created automatically by the TruckSim browser. When you create runs and view results, TruckSim assembles information from dozens of files and sends it to the math models, animator, or plotter programs. Alert You should never change the contents of the folders in a TruckSim database manually! When you work with the TruckSim browser, you assemble a run by choosing datasets via the GUI from libraries of controls, vehicles, roads, and other conditions that define a run (see Figure 2). The vehicle datasets are in turn assembled from component datasets. Although not shown in the figure, the controls, roads, and other datasets are in turn assembled from more basic datasets. The TruckSim database includes about 150 libraries that you will use to define vehicles, controls, test conditions, and other settings that define the simulation runs. TruckSim keeps track of the names and locations of all the files it creates and uses. This saves you work and prevents errors in several ways. One of the most important ways is by keeping only one copy of the data used to describe each part of the model. www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 2 How TruckSim Works — 7 — Roads LibraryControls Library Engines Library Tires Library Run 1 Vehicles Library ••• ••••••••• ••• ••• Run 2 Figure 2. Simulation runs are assembled from datasets selected from libraries. (This figure is from the VehicleSim Browser Reference Manual.) For example, you may have an 18-wheel truck, used in 60 simulated tests, and another used in 40 simulated tests. Suppose both trucks use the same type of tire and the tires on all wheels are the same. At least 5 files are used to describe a tire, but TruckSim doesn’t need to duplicate the data for all 100 tests (1800 tires!). Instead, each definition of a truck “points” to the 5 files containing the tire information. So, in this case, instead of keeping 1800 copies of 5 data files (a total of 9000), TruckSim needs only one copy of each of the 5 files. This approach obviously saves storage space, but there is another advantage in saving time: you only have to create each tire or other component once. If you find an error in your tire data, you need to fix it in only one place, and all the simulated tests that use it are automatically modified. You need only to rerun the math models after such a change, and all your results are updated. (And if you need to rerun the math models, you can use the TruckSim batch run feature that will re-do hundreds of runs with a single button click.) TruckSim is doing lot of work for you by keeping all this information organized in the database folder. You should NEVER modify the contents of the database folders directly, except for a very few cases described in the main documentation. If you edit database contents directly, the TruckSim browser can corrupt your data such that it cannot be recovered. www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 2 How TruckSim Works — 8 — Basic Operation of TruckSim The basic operation of TruckSim involves a simple sequence: 1. From the main TruckSim screen (called Run Control), use the Datasets menu to find an existing simulated test that is similar to the test you want to make. Then set up the conditions for the new run: a) Create a new dataset (copy the existing one) and give it a name. b) Possibly modify the vehicle or choose a different one. c) Possibly modify control inputs (steering, braking, shifting, and throttle), or choose a different set. d) Possibly modify the road geometry, friction, and wind conditions. e) Possibly modify the initial conditions and duration of the test. 2. Click the Run Math Model button to make the simulated test. 3. Click the Animate button to view motions. 4. Click the Plot button to view plots (there are hundreds of output variables that can be viewed and studied). In the next chapter, you will apply these steps to obtain hands-on experience using TruckSim. www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete — 9 — 3. A Hands-On Overview of TruckSim This chapter has step-by-step instructions that show how you view simulation results with the TruckSim animator and plotter, and how you make a new run with a new vehicle. Note TruckSim requires a license key to run. You will need a hardware key installed on a USB port of the computer (the key is called a dongle), or a license file that is specific to your machine, or a network license server. It is not possible to run TruckSim without one of these. Start TruckSim The TruckSim software is organized in two parts. One consists of programs such as the math model solver programs and the database browser program (TruckSim.exe). These programs are typically installed in your Windows Program Files folder, where they are not modified except when upgrades are made. The second part of TruckSim is the simulation data (inputs and outputs), contained in thousands of files that are located in a database folder, along with a small file called OpenWith.TruckSim7 that you can use to open the database with the TruckSim browser program. For example, Figure 3 shows this file in a TruckSim database folder. Figure 3. Start TruckSim by double-clicking a start file in the database folder. www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 3 A Hands-On Overview of TruckSim — 10 — 1. If you installed TruckSim with the standard options, there are several ways you can start. a. Use the start menu shortcut: Programs>TruckSim 7>TruckSim. b. Or, double-click on the TruckSim icon on your desktop. c. Or, locate the OpenWith.TruckSim7 file in your TruckSim database folder (see Figure 3) and double-click it. When TruckSim starts, it brings up the dialog box shown in Figure 4. The recent databases list 1 displays up to eight database folder names that were most recently opened with TruckSim. If you just installed TruckSim, or if you only have one database folder, only one will be shown. Continue the launch of TruckSim with the Start button 2 . If you don’t plan on using more than one database, you can skip this step in the future by checking the box 3 . (If you change your mind later and need to use more databases, you can re-enable this option from the TruckSim File menu. See the VehicleSim Browser Reference Manual, available from the Help menu, to learn more about the TruckSim browser.) Figure 4: Select a database. 2. TruckSim will launch, displaying the TruckSim Run Control screen that is shown in Figure 5 and Figure 7. [TruckSim Run Control] Note Some of the following instructions will indicate the name of the screen in square brackets to help you confirm that you are in the right place. For example, [TruckSim Run Control], at the end of the above instruction, is the first part of the title of the window you should now be seeing. www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 3 A Hands-On Overview of TruckSim — 11 — Home screen: Run Control VehicleSim solver 3D animator Engineering plotter Vehicle properties Test conditions Figure 5. The three regions of the TruckSim Run Control screen. (The images shown are from the help document for the Run Control screen, which describes both CarSim and TruckSim.) Note The TruckSim Run Control screen is divided into thirds (see Figure 5). The left third is used to specify inputs for a simulated test run; the right third is used to view results of the run; and the middle third is used to specify details of the run such as time duration, initial conditions, sets of output variables, etc. 3. Optionally use the View menu to change the window size to your preference (see Figure 6). Or, zoom the window to fill the monitor screen using the Windows zoom button. Figure 6. Control the size of the TruckSim browser window. 4. Notice that the title bar at the top of the window identifies the library name and the full name of the dataset. For example, in Figure 7 the library name is TruckSim Run Control, the dataset category is Quick Start Guide Example, and the title of the dataset in that category is Double lane change: Baseline. The dataset is locked, which is indicated by [L] at the end of the title, and also by the lock icon in upper-right window corner: www.cadfamily.com EMail:cadserv21@hotmail.com The document is for study only,if tort to your rights,please inform us,we will delete Chapter 3 A Hands-On Overview of TruckSim — 12 — 1 Library (screen) title Category name Dataset title Figure 7. Using the pull-down menu to go directly to a dataset. Press on the Datasets menu to see the names of all the datasets in the current library (see Figure 7). Notice that the items are grouped into sub-menus, and that the category name of the current dataset is one of the sub-menus (it is the sub-menu that is highlighted). The main purpose of the category is to provide organization to this pull-down