Development of an Integrated Approach for Suspension Performance Evaluation

Vehicle suspension systems are designed keeping in mind the requirement for vehicle articulations and load transfer between chassis & tires. Another factor which is given due importance is the avoidance of extremities with end cushions. As such extremities result in generation of impact loads which could eventually lead to failure of end cushions and the vehicle chassis. Number of occurrences of these extremities is an indication of how good a vehicle suspension design is. This paper presents a methodology developed that converts a shock absorber to a potential sensor, that not only measures the travel and velocity, but also the different kind of loads generated at different events. It includes instrumentation, data acquisition and its analysis for evaluating the performance of the shock absorber and also to provide additional insights into its design. Based on these measurements, a virtual simulation model is built, validated and used for subsequent sensitivity study to optimize the damper design.