This document describes the use of Static Vehicle Characteristics (SVC), a set of Adams utility subroutines which compute Static Vehicle Characteristics (SVC) for automobile or light truck suspensions at static equilibrium. Examples of such characteristics include wheel rate and front suspension percent anti-dive. SVC analyzes both full-vehicle and half-vehicle models. For a full vehicle, SVC calculates characteristics for the front and rear suspension as well as general vehicle characteristics such as ground reactions and mass properties. For a half-vehicle, SVC computes only suspension characteristics.

The characteristics computed by SVC are generally based upon the compliance matrix for a vehicle suspension. Loosely, this matrix is defined as the wheel center deflections relative to the body due to unit forces and moments applied at the wheel centers. The compliance matrix is computed by inverting the Jacobian matrix formed by Adams and then manipulating the resultant matrix to remove the body's six degrees of freedom and the effects of the tires.

The compliance matrix is a linear representation of a vehicle suspension at a particular ride height and steer angle. Since vehicle suspensions are inherently nonlinear, the characteristics computed by SVC are accurate only at the ride height and steer angle for which they were computed. See Definition of the SVC Compliance Matrix for more information.

Within this topic, there is a description of how to use SVC. This description includes a list of statements that must be added to an Adams data-set before using SVC and the commands for invoking SVC during an Adams simulation. In addition, all the static vehicle characteristics output by SVC are defined. Finally, see the output parameters SVC computes for a vehicle or half-vehicle in SVC Output Parameters section.