A Comparative Study of Advanced Suspension Dampers for Vibration and Shock Isolation Performance of Road Vehicle

Electro-Rheological (ER) and Magneto-Rheological (MR) fluid based advanced suspension dampers are emerging to be the next generation of suspension dampers for their attractive features and promising performance potential to overcome the limitations of existing dampers in market. This study compares the vibration and shock isolation performances of ER damper and MR damper with linear passive damper and two-stage asymmetric non-linear damper using a four degrees-of-freedom pitch plane ride model. The study reveals superior vibration and shock isolation performance of ER and MR dampers for sprung mass compared to linear passive and asymmetric non-linear dampers. At higher frequencies (above 10 Hz), these dampers transmit higher load to pavement compared to other two. The study suggests that asymmetricity should be included in the design of these dampers to achieve improved performance over the entire frequency range. A properly tuned MR damper with controller to provide asymmetric characteristics has the most potential for superior performance for all responses.