Development of a Semi-Active Suspension System for Lightweight Automobiles
Development of a Semi-active Suspension System for Lightweight Automobiles Sheetanshu Tyagi Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science In Mechanical Engineering Saied Taheri (Chair) Mehdi Ahmadian Corina Sandu June 17th, 2016 Blacksburg, VA Keywords: semi-active, damper, testing, design, suspension Copyright 2016, Sheetanshu Tyagi Development of a Semi-active Suspension System for Lightweight Automobiles Sheetanshu Tyagi ABSTRACT Vehicle suspension systems play an integral role in influencing the overall performance of a vehicle. The suspension system of a vehicle performs multiple tasks, such as maintaining contact between the tires and the road and isolating the frame of the vehicle from road-induced vibration and shocks. A significant amount of research has been directed to improving the performance of the suspension system by varying the damping coefficient so as to alter the frequency response of the system. This study describes the development of such a damper. The goal of this research has been to design, model, fabricate and test a novel semi-active damper. The damper consists of two independent electronically controlled units placed in series with one another. The system was initially simulated using a 2 DOF quarter-car model and the performance characteristics of the damper were outlined. Following that, multiple design iterations of the damper were created and a MATLAB/Simulink model was used to simulate physical and flow characteristics of the damper. After the design and analysis was complete, the damper was fabricated and tested using a shock dyno at CenTiRe.
[Show full text]