Title: Modelling of magnetorheological semi-active suspension system controlled by semi-active damping force estimator

Authors: Saiful Anuar Abu Bakar; Hishamuddin Jamaluddin; Roslan Abd. Rahman; Pakharuddin Mohd. Samin; Ryosuke Masuda; Hiromu Hashimoto; Takeshi Inaba

Addresses: Department of Automotive Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor 81310, Malaysia. ' Department of System Dynamics and Control, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor 81310, Malaysia. ' Department of System Dynamics and Control, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor 81310, Malaysia. ' Department of Automotive Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor 81310, Malaysia. ' Department of Applied Computer Engineering, School of Information Science and Technology, Tokai University, 1117 Kitakaname, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Tokai University, 1114 Kitakaname, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan. ' Department of Applied Computer Engineering, School of Information Science and Technology, Tokai University, 1117 Kitakaname, Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan

Abstract: This paper presents the simulation study of magnetorheological semi-active suspension system controlled by a new proposed algorithm. The control algorithm named as Semi-Active Damping Force Estimator (SADE) is proposed to control the operations of the magnetorheological damper. The simulation of semi-active suspension system was done by considering actual dynamics behaviour of a custom-made magnetorheological damper, where its characteristic testing and modelling are described. The performance of magnetorheological semi-active car suspension system controlled by SADE in term of ride comfort is evaluated in comparison with normal suspension system. The performance of SADE semi-active suspension system is also compared with the skyhook-controlled semi-active suspension system performance. It is shown that magnetorheological semi-active suspension system controlled by SADE is able to improve vehicle’s ride comfort significantly compared to passive suspension system. The SADE-controlled semi-active suspension system performs more or less the same as skyhook-controlled semi-active suspension system.

Keywords: semi-active damping force estimators; skyhook control; magnetorheological dampers; ride performance; semi-active suspension systems; simulation; modelling; ride comfort; vehicle suspension.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2011.043885

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2011 Vol.42 No.1, pp.49 - 64

Published online: 27 Nov 2011 *

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