Title: Comparing the performance and limitations of semi-active suspensions

Authors: Xabier Carrera Akutain, Jordi Vinolas, Joan Savall, Miguel Castro

Addresses: TECNUN (University of Navarra) Manuel de Lardizabal 13, 20018 San Sebastian, Spain. ' CEIT and TECNUN (University of Navarra), P.Manuel de Lardizabal 15, San Sebastian (E-20018), Spain. ' CEIT and TECNUN (University of Navarra), P.Manuel de Lardizabal 15, San Sebastian (E-20018), Spain. ' CEIT and TECNUN (University of Navarra), P.Manuel de Lardizabal 15, San Sebastian (E-20018), Spain

Abstract: The potential of a controllable suspension system is limited mainly by the damping span of the shock absorbers and the switching times of the actuators. In order to quantify the relative importance and study the sensitivity of this and other features to the constraints in the force modulation ability, this paper deals with an extensive simulation work. Several models of different complexity for controllable shock absorbers are employed, including Continuously Variable Dampers (CVD) and Discrete Stage Variable Dampers (DSVD). A full vehicle model is designed and experimentally validated with collected sensors data for this sake.

Keywords: full car multi-body; semi-active suspensions; suspension control strategies; damper design parameters; vehicle suspensions; simulation; modelling; sensor data; continuously variable dampers; CVD; discrete stage variable dampers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVSMT.2007.016239

International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing, 2007 Vol.2 No.3, pp.296 - 314

Published online: 11 Dec 2007 *

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