Crank-Lever Electromagnetic Damper (CLEMD) Design for Automobile Suspension System

An effective damper is among the most important components of the suspension system. It ensures the right amount of damping force is acting on the suspension system to provide comfort to the passengers and proper road holding to tires. Unfortunately, the energy absorbed by the dampers from the suspension system gets wasted in the form of heat. In this article, it is proposed to use innovative electromagnetic damper (EMD) with a crank-lever mechanism to recover energy from the suspension system. The goal is to develop a lightweight design of EMD that can recover a high amount of power. For the design, an off-road vehicle is used since in off-road vehicles the amount of power wasted in the suspension system is high. Three different design approaches are used, which include single-stage gearbox type, two-stage gearbox type, and three-stage gearbox type of CLEMD. Out of them, the best design, i.e. three-stage gearbox type of CLEMD is selected because of minimum weight and inertia of the components. This article is focused on the design and analysis of the three-stage gearbox type of CLEMD. On the basis of the output of numerical simulations of vehicle model, specifications for crank-lever electromagnetic damper (CLEMD) are driven and design is carried out. Also, performance analyses of CLEMD are carried out by interfacing model of CLEMD with the model of a vehicle. The advantage of CLEMD is it can act as an actuator to provide active force in an active suspension system.