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Performance of Magneto
Rheological Dampers for Heavy
Truck Suspensions
David Simon
Mehdi Ahmadian
Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory,
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Virginia Tech, MC-0238,
Blacksburg, VA 24061
This study is intended to complement many existing analytical studies in the area of
semiactive suspensions by providing a field evaluation of semiactive magneto rheological
(MR) primary suspensions for heavy trucks. A set of four controllable MR dampers are
fabricated and used experimentally to test the effectiveness of a semiactive skyhook suspension on a heavy truck. In order to evaluate the performance of the semiactive suspensions, the performance of the truck equipped with the MR dampers is primarily compared
with the performance of the truck equipped with the stock passive dampers. The performance of the semiactive system and the original passive system are compared for two
different driving conditions. First, the truck is driven over a speed bump at approximately
811 kmh (57 mph) in order to establish a comparison between the performance of the
MR and stock dampers to transient inputs at the wheels. Second, the truck is driven along
a stretch of relatively straight and level highway at a constant speed of 100 kmh (62 mph)
in order to compare the performance of the two types of dampers in steady state driving
conditions. Acceleration data for both driving conditions are analyzed in both time and
frequency domains. The data for the speed bumps indicate that the magneto rheological
dampers used (with the skyhook control policy) in this study have a small effect on the
vehicle body and wheel dynamics, as compared to the passive stock dampers. The highway driving data shows that magneto rheological dampers and the skyhook control policy
are effective in reducing the root mean square (RMS) of the measured acceleration at
most measurement points, as compared to the stock dampers. DOI: 10.1115/1.1376721
Introduction
Historically, heavy trucks have exhibited poor ride quality as
compared to passenger cars. This poor ride quality can have many
detrimental effects, such as increased operator fatigue, damage to
the operators body, and cargo damage. Therefore, the trucking
industry has, in the past decades, investigated many ways to address this issue with ideas ranging from improved use of passive
suspensions to use of active elements with sophisticated control
strategies 16.
In the design of traditional passive primary suspension systems,
there is an inherent trade-off between the two qualities of ride
comfort and vehicle stability, as shown in Fig. 1. If a primary
suspension is designed to optimize the handling and stability of
the vehicle, the operator may perceive the ride to be rough and
uncomfortable. Alternatively, if the primary suspension is designed to be soft, the vehicle will be comfortable but stability
during vehicle maneuvers may be compromised. A primary suspension can only be optimized for one set of driving conditions.
To bypass this performance trade-off and achieve better performance, suspension designers have increasingly looked towards
adjustable, semiactive, active, or adaptively controlled suspensions. Each of these types of suspensions has different advantages
and disadvantages. Initially, fully active dampers devices that
draw large amounts of power to generate a force proportional to
variables other than the relative velocity across the damper were
of the highest interest. These devices commonly use a hydraulic
actuator to generate a force according to sensor feedback and a
control strategy 710. In a study by Chalasani 11, a quarter car
model was used to investigate the performance gains that are posContributed by the Technical Committee on Vibration and Sound for publication
in the JOURNAL OF VIBRATION AND ACOUSTICS. Manuscript received Oct. 2000;
revised Feb. 2001. Associate Editor: H. S. Tzou.
Fig. 1 Ride comfort and vehicle handling compromise for passive dampers
V 1 V 1 V 2 0
Chigh damping
V 1 V 1 V 2 0
Clow damping
(1)
Fig. 5 Comparison between the MR damper force range and passive dampers force
a Digital Audio Tape DAT recorder. A schematic of the instrumentation as well as the flow of data is shown in Fig. 9.
Road Testing
Test Vehicle. The test vehicle used in this study was a heavy
truck, shown in Fig. 10, which included a 14.6 m 48 ft box
trailer that was unladen for our tests. The tractor weighs 20,000 kg
44,000 lbs and the legal limit on the gross vehicle weight for this
vehicle is 36,290 kg 80,000 lbs. The primary suspension of the
Volvo VN heavy truck has six dampers, one located at each end
of the three axles. Of the six stock dampers, four were replaced
with controllable MR dampers as shown in Fig. 11. The four
positions chosen were the two front wheels and the rearmost
wheelset. The two MR dampers in the rear allow control over the
dynamics of the rear wheel set without the added cost and complexity of replacing all four. Figures 12 and 13 show the installa-
Steady State Tests. The steady state tests were conducted for
cases 1, 2, and 4 mentioned above. Case 3 was not performed with
a steady state input as the expected performance can be extrapolated from the measured performance of cases 2 and 4, and running the dampers continuously in their on state would add unnecessary stress to the MR dampers. The data was processed in the
same manner for both the transient and steady state test cases,
with the exception that the transient test case data was analyzed
with respect to displacement in addition to acceleration.
Data Reduction. The time domain analysis of the transient
data was performed with respect to both acceleration and displacement in order to examine aspects of both ride and handling.
The first steps of the data processing are the same for both. These
first steps included decimation of the data to facilitate further
processing by first passing it through a low-pass filter and then
re-sampling it at a lower frequency. The low-pass filter used for
the decimation was a thirty-point finite impulse response FIR
filter chosen for its low passband ripple and steep attenuation at
higher frequencies. The data was then re-sampled with a decimation factor of 60 i.e., every 60th point was used, moving the new
Nyquist frequency to 50 Hz. Then the decimated data was passed
through a digital filter in order to eliminate both high frequency
Fig. 10 Volvo VN heavy truck, Model 770 with the test trailer
A sample acceleration time trace is shown in Fig. 15, highlighting the two-second period in which the RMS acceleration is calculated. The acceleration signal was from the frame of the truck
on the front passenger side. Values of both the maximum and
RMS acceleration were averaged across like data sets for each
channel, in order to minimize the effects of any noise still in the
data. Nine data sets were taken in which the test truck, equipped
with MR dampers and skyhook control, was driven over the same
speed bump. The tests in which the MR dampers were continuously operated in the on state were repeated five times. The peak
acceleration amplitude and RMS acceleration of each accelerometer position from like data sets were again averaged together. For
the MR dampers in the off state, the tests were repeated four
times.
There were six data sets in which the test vehicle with the stock
dampers was driven over the same speed bump. This data serves
JULY 2001, Vol. 123 369
Fig. 16 Acceleration results: average RMS acceleration for the test vehicle wMR dampers and skyhook
control policy
data set twenty times by a factor of sixty, each time starting three
elements later than the last. The FFTs of each of these sets were
averaged together, and then combined with the averaged FFTs of
data from like tests. This led to a single, averaged FFT for each of
the four test cases; although only the cases of the truck equipped
with the original dampers and MR dampers with on-off skyhook
control will be discussed here. The averaged FFT for each of these
cases was examined in terms of the average peak intensity in each
of four frequency bands. The average peak intensity for a frequency band was defined as the sum of the product of the magnitude of the acceleration at each frequency times the frequency
width. The four frequency bands that were chosen for analysis are
based on a study by Ahmadian 21, which correlates these bands
to different aspects of the truck dynamics. The frequency bands
chosen are:
14 Hz,
49 Hz,
914 Hz,
1419 Hz.
Fig. 17 Acceleration results: average RMS acceleration for the test vehicle with original dampers
responding to roll, heave, and pitch, respectively show that controlled MR dampers increase the accelerations in the cab, as compared to the stock dampers. The comparison of the four test cases
also shows that the controlled MR dampers exhibit larger RMS
accelerations of the axles than the stock dampers, as shown in Fig.
20. For displacements, the comparison of the four test cases shows
that the controlled MR dampers increased the vertical displacement of both the axle and the frame in the front of the test vehicle,
compared to the stock dampers, as illustrated in Fig. 21. A comparison of the RMS displacement, shown in Fig. 22, indicates that
the RMS displacement of the frame was not increased. This points
to higher levels of initial frame displacement as the truck passes
over the speed bump, but quicker damping of the vibration as a
result of the controlled MR dampers.
Test Results
The presentation of the test results will be based on both the
type of test transient or steady state and the type of analysis
time or frequency domain.
A comparison of the four test cases shows that the MR dampers
with skyhook control policy referred to as controlled MR exhibit
acceleration peaks of magnitudes equal or greater than the stock
dampers at all measurement positions, as shown in Fig. 19. For
measurements made on the axles, the acceleration peaks were
significantly larger for the controllable MR dampers than for the
stock dampers. For the frame accelerations, the acceleration peaks
were similar for the controlled MR dampers and the original
dampers. The results of the tests, where the MR dampers were
controlled with either zero continuously off or three amps continuously on of current, tend to envelope the average acceleration
peaks for the controlled MR accelerations at various positions.
The measurements at the B-post in the y, z, and x directions cor-
Fig. 23 Percent increase of acceleration peak intensity: controlled MR vs. original transient
Fig. 24 Percent increase of RMS acceleration: controlled MR vs. original dampers steady
state
Fig. 25 Percent increase of acceleration peak intensity: controlled MR vs. original steady
state
Observations
The transient test results indicate that the controlled MR dampers cause a small change in vehicle body and wheel dynamics, as
compared to the passive stock dampers. In terms of the peak acceleration at each of the eleven measurement points, the MR
dampers with the skyhook control policy show relatively little
performance improvement, as compared to the stock passive
dampers. The MR dampers generally increase the value of the
peak levels of both displacement and acceleration. This result is
most evident in measurements taken on the axles of the truck. A
JULY 2001, Vol. 123 373
14 Hz
49 Hz
914 Hz
1419 Hz
Front frame
Front axle
Rear frame
Rear axle
Roll, heave and pitch
3.1
61.6
33.2
40.2
15.4
4.4
21.6
30.7
23.8
8.6
4.2
12.1
2.2
7.9
9
7.6
38.8
14.8
18.1
12.5
14 Hz 49 Hz 914 Hz 1419 Hz
74.8
6.9
40.9
11.6
17
92.8
6.5
16.2
13.3
28.8
47.8
50.7
17.9
35.6
22.1
99.7
115.8
22.2
27.6
58.2
Concluding Remarks
The effect of a semiactive magneto rheological MR suspension on the performance of a heavy truck was investigated. An
adjustable damper incorporating a magneto rheological fluid was
developed, tested in the laboratory, and installed on a Volvo VN
series heavy truck. A real-time embedded controller was used to
independently vary the level of damping present in each of the
four dampers according to a skyhook control policy. The performance of the truck with the experimental dampers was compared
with the performance of the truck with the stock dampers for two
distinct test conditions.
The first condition was a transient input to the suspension system. The input was attained by driving the test vehicle over a
speed bump at relatively slow speeds 811 kmh 57 mph.
This test was performed for four cases:
Test vehicle equipped with the experimental MR suspension
and skyhook control,
Test vehicle equipped with the experimental MR suspension,
with the dampers being operated continually in their on or
stiff state,
Test vehicle equipped with the experimental MR suspension,
with the dampers being operated continually in their off or
soft state,
Test vehicle equipped with the stock dampers.
The second test condition included a continuous input to the
suspension system, through driving the test vehicle at an approximately constant speed of 100 kmh 62 mph on a straight and
level highway. This test was performed for three cases:
Test vehicle equipped with the experimental MR suspension
and skyhook control,
Test vehicle equipped with the experimental MR suspension,
with the dampers being operated continually in their on or
stiff state,
Test vehicle equipped with the stock dampers.
For both test conditions, acceleration data was recorded at eleven
positions on the truck. The data was examined in both time and
frequency domains to determine the performance of the MR
dampers relative to the stock dampers.
The transient test results indicate that the controlled MR dampers appear to yield larger acceleration and displacement peaks, as
compared to the stock dampers. The acceleration and displacement RMS values, however, did not show the same increase. This
leads to the conclusion that the controlled MR dampers can cause
Transactions of the ASME
larger acceleration and displacement peaks, but damp out the resulting vibrations quicker. Further examination of the same data
showed that the controlled MR dampers generally cause a decrease in the acceleration peak intensity in four frequency bands
within the vehicle dynamic frequencies. This decrease was greater
in the lower frequency bands bands which have a greater effect
on the comfort and stability of a vehicle, therefore showing that
the controlled MR dampers can have a beneficial effect on the
performance of a heavy truck.
The steady state tests indicate that controlled MR dampers are
more effective in lowering the RMS accelerations at most locations compared to the stock dampers. This would lead to the conclusion that the use of the controlled MR dampers could increase
operator comfort and reduce vehicle wear over an extended period
of time. The same data, however, showed an increase in the acceleration peak intensity of the measured acceleration in each of
four frequency bands, suggesting a potential increase in ride
harshness due to controlled MR dampers.
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