Study on the Vehicle Unsteady Vibration Control with a Semi-Active Strut

Unsteady vibrations of vehicles, which can be easily perceived by the human body, may affect the driving experience and compromise driving comfort. However, the conventional three-point powertrain mounting system (PMS) often fails to offer a satisfactory solution. Here, a novel four-point PMS was proposed by introducing a semi-active strut (SAS), which can provide stronger damping in a low-frequency range to resolve this problem. Specifically, a thirteen degrees of freedom (DoFs) vehicle dynamic model (VDM) with four mounts was constructed, and the evaluation indices for unsteady vibration responses of the vehicle were determined and analyzed; Next, the PMS optimization design approach was employed to identify the proper position of installation and dynamic stiffness of the SAS, and meanwhile the 13 DoFs VDM and the force-sharing principle were used to identify the structural parameters of the strut; Last, comparative experiments were performed to analyze the effect of the strut on alleviating the unsteady vibration of the vehicle under varied unsteady vehicle states. The results showed that the SAS has significantly reduced the seat rail peak acceleration, verifying the effectiveness of our novel PMS in alleviating the unsteady vibration. The research provided a feasible solution to alleviate the unsteady vibration of vehicles and improve the driving experience.