Paper Title
Comparison of Nonlinear Fire Truck Suspension Models

Abstract
During operation of a fire truck harmful vibrations can often occur, which can damage both the vehicle and the carried firefighting equipment. With numerical simulations the weak points can be easily detected and an optimal suspension system can be designed to reduce the effects of harmful vibrations. The suspension of a vehicle can be modeled as a mass-spring-damper system. However for effective numerical simulation as accurate model should be established as possible. In this paper mass-spring-damper suspension models with different degrees of freedom are compared. It is examined how additional elements, like the cabin and the engine vibration affects the vehicles behavior. It is observed that additional effects in a nonlinear model can change the topology of the system completely. Index Terms- fire truck, numerical simulation, system modeling, vibrations