Hydraulically Controlled Adjustable Dampers

A system for remotely adjusting automotive dampers (shock absorbers) by means of modulated hydraulic pressure has been developed. This system can employ the road energy that would normally be dissipated by the dampers into heat, for powering the hydraulic control of damping. A generalized methodology for designing damping valving is developed and extended to hydraulic control. Limitations of the concept including force, response time and safety are covered. Experimental data of a unit with unidirectional flow of the damper fluid is presented.

Several levels of control are described from simple manually actuated pressure sources that control only damper valving to sophisticated ECU modulated systems with low pressure servo valves that have a system response that is flat to 200 Hz.