Experimental Investigation on Hybrid Suspension System for Commercial Passenger Vehicle

The current research in modern commercial vehicles has been focusing on occupant comfort and safety system, especially on noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) studies. In that point of view, the current study analyzed the performance of a hybrid suspension system for light commercial passenger vehicles under different road surfaces. The mathematical model and the experimental investigation were carried out for the full car model under periodic and discrete road inputs. The output parameters, like the driver seat acceleration, body acceleration, suspension travel, tire displacement, pitching, and rolling motions were observed. The influence of the hybrid suspension system has been associated with driver seat acceleration as compared with the passive model, also simulation model and experimental model. The results showed that the proposed system improved the comfort level in terms of driver acceleration by 32.3% and keeping the handling performance within the acceptable range with small degradation.