Research on vehicle performance improvement based on nonlinear bionic suspension with inerter and its control strategies

Abstract

Research on improving whole vehicle performance by enhancing suspension performance has much attention all the time. It is found that inerter based on on-off control strategy combined with bionic nonlinear structure can improve the suspension performance in previous study. Due to this, a whole vehicle performance enhancement method is proposed, that is, a suspension with inerter and bionic nonlinear stiffness characteristics (IBS) is introduced into the whole vehicle, and combined with three whole vehicle layout schemes (Scheme-I, Scheme-II and Scheme-III) of the IBS, the continuous relative-velocity relative-acceleration (CR) control strategy and the continuous absolute-velocity relative-acceleration (CA) control strategy are designed to control the IBS to enhance the whole vehicle performance efficiently. The whole vehicle dynamic models of the proposed schemes are established, the whole vehicle performance for the IBS with passive inerter and semi-active inerter are investigated, and the comprehensive evaluation index is constructed to comprehensively evaluate the whole vehicle performance of the IBS with semi-active inerter. The results show that the IBS with passive inerter can only partially improve the whole vehicle performance. The IBS with semi-active inerter can significantly enhance the whole vehicle ride comfort and handling stability, and eliminate the negative effects of the IBS with passive inerter. Comparatively speaking, the Scheme-II under the CR control strategy has the best whole vehicle performance improvement effect, and it has excellent road and speed adaptability under different working conditions. The above results verify the correctness of the proposed idea, the feasibility of the schemes, and the effectiveness of the control strategies.