Dynamical analysis of a fractional-order nonlinear two-degree-of-freedom vehicle system by incremental harmonic balance method

At present, there are few studies considering both nonlinear and fractional characteristics of suspension in vehicle systems. In this paper, a fractional nonlinear model of a quarter vehicle with two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) is innovatively proposed to describe the suspension system containing the viscoelastic material metal rubber. Given the lack of a general calculation scheme for the multi-degree-of-freedom fractional-order incremental harmonic balance method (IHBM), a general calculation scheme for the 2-DOF incremental harmonic balance method for nonlinear systems with fractional order is derived. The nonlinear dynamical properties of the presented model are acquired using this method. The accuracy of the proposed method is verified through a comparison with the power series expansion method. Afterward, the effects of the various parameters on the dynamic performance are analyzed. The vibration peak value of the fractional-order model is significantly higher than that of the integer-order model (IOM). Therefore, the suspension parameters should be designed with a margin when using IOM.