Vibration and Shock Isolation Performance of a Commercial Semi-Active Vehicle Seat Damper

Vibration and shock isolation pose conflicting design requirements in vehicle seating; thus, conventional passive seat suspensions are typically designed to optimize either vibration or shock isolation, depending on the application. Semi-active suspensions can significantly reduce this tradeoff, providing additional vibration and/or shock protection. For this experiment, a commercial vehicle seat was excited by a simulated pothole and random vibration containing shocks with both the standard passive damper and a commercial semi-active damper. The input vibration required to cause end-stop impacts, and the vibration and shock isolation performance were measured and compared. The results showed that the semi-active damper significantly reduced VDV ratios as well while improving overall.