Vehicle Ride and Handling: 60 Seconds with Max Boerboom of Volvo Cars

Ahead of speaking at the Vehicle Ride and Handling seminar, we caught up with Max Boerboom, Vehicle Dynamics Engineer at Volvo Cars. Max explained his role and involvement in the development of vehicle ride and handling technologies, the critical challenges and what he is looking forward to at the event.

Q: Could you briefly explain your role, involvement and experience in Vehicle Ride and Handling? 

Max Boerboom (MH): I am a Vehicle Dynamics CAE Engineer in the Driving Dynamics department at Volvo Cars. My departments’ deliverables are setting and attaining targets for the attributes; steering, handling and ride. My main responsibility is the development of our dynamic driving simulator where we test new chassis settings and active systems among others. 

Q: What are you most looking forward to by attending and presenting at the Vehicle Ride and Handling seminar? 

MH: Networking. I would like to see how other OEMs and suppliers do things and to understand the industry trend with virtual development. Presenting at this seminar gives me the opportunity to share how we apply virtual development in our development chain at Volvo.

Q: What are the key issues facing engineers involved in Vehicle Ride and Handling and how are you approaching them?

MH: Correct attribute balancing for all project variants in the limited time of a development cycle. We try to frontload the development work using CAE for better target setting and vehicle specifications in the early development phase of a car project. The dynamic driving simulator allows us to get a subjective feel in an early stage of development, when prototype vehicles haven’t been produced yet.  

Q: What technologies do you think are shaping the future of Vehicle Ride and Handling in the UK and Europe? 

MH: Two technological developments which are having a major impact on driving dynamics are electrification and autonomous drive. The weight of a battery pack (with a competitive range) for electric vehicles poses new challenges on ride and handling. Autonomous drive will affect the lateral control of the car, thereby setting new targets for handling.

Find out more

Max will be speaking at Vehicle Ride and Handling seminar on 19 October 2017 in Birmingham. Join him and other experts from VI-grade, Jaguar Land Rover, Continental, Danisi Engineering, MegaRide, HORIBA MIRA and more.

Key programme highlights:

• Hear about the use of driving simulators in vehicle dynamics development from Volvo Car Group
• Find out how Jaguar Land Rover's approach to tyre design techniques supports their ride and handling development
• Danisi Engineering share their passive vehicle dynamics considerations for autonomous drive
• Continental discuss their techniques for managing global chassis and motion control
• Learn about the eDC2 – Hybrid Vehicle Torque Vectoring System from HORIBA MIRA
  MegaRide detail what advances have been made in physical tyre modelling for real-time simulations.

For further information, visit Vehicle Ride and Handling.