1 of 39

Determination of anti-pitch geometry

– acceleration [1/3]
• Similar to anti-squat
• Opposite direction of
D’Alembert’s forces.

Front wheel forces and effective pivot locations

Figure from Smith,2002
 2 of 39

Determination of anti-pitch geometry

– acceleration [2/3]

It follows that the change in the front spring force

is:

where kf = front suspension stiffness.

Similarly for the rear wheels.
 3 of 39

Determination of anti-pitch geometry

– acceleration [3/3]
Pitch angle

• Zero pitch occurs when θ = 0, i.e. when the term in square

brackets is zero.
• anti-squat and anti-pitch performance depends on the
following vehicle properties –
– suspension geometry,
– suspension stiffnesses (front and rear) and
– Tractive force distribution.
 4 of 39

Lateral load transfer during cornering

Notation and assumptions in the analysis are:
• G is the sprung mass centre of gravity;
• The transverse acceleration at G due to
cornering is ‘a’;
• The sprung mass rolls through the angle φ
about the roll axis;
• The centrifugal (inertia) force on the
sprung mass msa acts horizontally through
G;
• The gravity force on the sprung mass msg
acts vertically downwards through G;
• The inertia forces mufa and mura act
directly on the unsprung masses at the
front and rear axles. Each transfers load
only between its own pair of wheels.
Steady-state cornering analysis

Figure from Smith,2002

 5 of 39

Load transfer due to the roll moment

[1/2]
Replace the two forces at G with the same forces at
A plus a moment (the roll moment) Ms about the
roll axis, i.e

Assuming linear relationship between Mφ and φ

Mφ = ksφ
ks = total roll stiffness
 6 of 39

Load transfer due to the roll moment

[2/2]

ksf + ksr = ks
• Load transfer sin two axles are

• Tf and Tr are the front and rear track widths of the

vehicle
 7 of 39

Load transfer due to sprung mass

inertia force
The sprung mass is
distributed to the roll
centers at front and rear
axles.

Centrifugal force
distribution is

Corresponding load
transfers are
 8 of 39

Load transfer due to the unsprung

mass inertia forces

Total load transfer

 9 of 39

Suspension components
• Need for compliance between unsprung and sprung mass.
Requirements:
• Good isolation of the body(Good ride) – Soft response
– Inconsistent with roll resistance in cornering
– Roll stiffening using ant-roll bars
– Spring can hit limits
– Additional springs as bump stops
• Prevent high frequency vibration from being transmitted
– Use rubber bush connections
• Good road grip (Good handling) – Hard response
 10 of 39

Steel springs
• Semi-elliptic springs –
earliest developments in
motor vehicle
• Robust and simple – used
for heavy applications
• Hotchkiss type- to provide
both vertical compliance
and lateral constraint for
the wheel travel
• change in length of the
spring produced by bump
loading is accommodated Leaf spring design
by the swinging shackle

Figure from Smith,2002

 11 of 39

Leaf spring analysis

• Wheel load FW , is vertical.
• FC is parallel to the shackle
• Two load member
• The stiffness (rate) of the
spring is determined by the
number, length, width and
thickness of the leaves
• Angling of the shackle link
used to give a variable rate
• When the angle θ < 90° ,
the spring rate will increase
(i.e. rising rate) with bump
loading

Figure from Smith,2002

 12 of 39

Coil springs
• Light and compact form of compliance for weight and
packaging constraints
• Little maintenance and provides
• Opportunity for co-axial mounting with a damper
• Variable rate springs produced either by varying the
coil diameter and/or pitch of the coils along its length
Disadvantages:
• Low levels of structural damping, there is a possibility
of surging (resonance along the length of coils)
• Spring as a whole does not provide any lateral support
for guiding the wheel motion.
 13 of 39

Torsion bars
• Very simple form of
spring and consequently
very cheap
• The principle of operation
is to convert the applied
load FW into a torque FW ×
R producing twist in the
bar
• Stiffness related to
diameter, length of the
torsion bar and the
torsion modulus of the
material Principle of operation of a torsion bar spring

Figure from Smith,2002

 14 of 39

Hydro-pneumatic springs
• Spring is produced by a
constant mass of gas (typically
nitrogen) in a variable volume Basic diaphragm accumulator spring
enclosure
• As the wheel deflects in bump,
the piston moves upwards
transmitting the motion to the
fluid and compressing the gas
via the flexible diaphragm
• The gas pressure increases as
its volume decreases to
produce a hardening spring
characteristic
• Systems are complex (and Principles of a hydro-pneumatic
expensive) and maintenance suspension spring

Figure from Smith,2002

 15 of 39

Anti-roll bars (stabilizer)

• Reduce body roll
• Ends of the U-shaped bar
connected to the wheel
supports and
• Central length of bar
attached to body of the
vehicle
• Attachment points need
to be selected to ensure
that bar is subjected to
Torsional loading without Anti-roll bar layout
bending

Figure from Smith,2002

 16 of 39

Anti-roll bars (stabilizer)

Conditions: Total roll stiffness krs is equal to the sum
• One wheels is lifted relative to of the roll-stiffness produced by the
the other, half the total anti-roll suspension springs kr,sus and the roll
stiffness acts downwards on the stiffness of the anti-roll bars kr,ar,
wheel and the reaction on the
vehicle body tends to resist body
roll.
• If both wheels lift by the same
amount the bar is not twisted and
there is no transfer of load to the
vehicle body.
• If the displacements of the
wheels are mutually opposed
(one wheel up and the other
down by the same amount), the
full effect of the anti-roll stiffness Roll bar contribution to total roll stiffness
is produced.

Figure from Smith,2002

 17 of 39

Dampers – types and characteristics

• Frequently called shock
absorbers
• Main energy dissipators
in a vehicle suspension
• Two types: dual tube,
Mono tube.
• In mono tube
– Surplus fluid
accommodated by gas Damper types, (a) dual tube damper,
pressurized free piston (b) free-piston monotube damper

Figure from Smith,2002

 18 of 39

Dampers – types and characteristics

• In dealing with road surface
undulations in the bump
direction (damper being
compressed) relatively low
levels of damping are
required compared with the
rebound motion (damper
being extended)
• These requirements lead to
damper characteristics
which are asymmetrical
when plotted on force-
velocity axes
• Ratios of 3:1 Damper characteristics

Figure from Smith,2002

 19 of 39

Dampers – types and characteristics

• Damper designs are
achieved by a
combination of orifice
flow and flows through
spring-loaded one-way
valves
– At low speeds orifices are Shaping of damper characteristics
effective
– At higher pressure valves
open up
• lot of scope for shaping
and fine tuning of damper
characteristics
Typical curves for a three position
(electronically) adjustable damper
Figure from Smith,2002
 20 of 39

Road surface roughness and vehicle

excitation
• Road surfaces have random profiles -> non-
deterministic.
• Methods based on the Fourier transform
• Power spectral density ‘S(n)’ of the height
variations as a function of the spatial
frequency ‘n’

κ = the roughness coefficient

 21 of 39

Road surface roughness and vehicle

excitation

Substituting

The variation of S( f ) for a

vehicle traversing a poor
minor road at 20 m/s is
shown

Figure from Smith,2002

 22 of 39

Human response to whole body

vibration
• Human body –complex assemblage of linear and non-
linear elements
• Range of body resonances - 1 to 900 Hz
• For a seated human
– 1–2 Hz (head–neck)
– 4–8 Hz (thorax–abdomen)
• Perception of vibration motions diminishes above 25
Hz and emerges as audible sound.
• Dual perception (vibration and sound) up to several
hundred Hz is related to the term harshness
 23 of 39

Human response to whole body

vibration
• Motion sickness (kinetosis) – low frequency , normally in
ships
• ISO 2631 (ISO, 1978) and the equivalent British Standard BS
6841 (BSI, 1987)
• whole-body vibration from a supporting surface to either
the feet of a standing person or the buttocks of a seated
person
The criteria are specified in terms of
• Direction of vibration input to the human torso
• Acceleration magnitude
• Frequency of excitation
• Exposure duration
 24 of 39

Human response to whole body

vibration
• Most sensitive frequency range
for vertical vibration is from 4–8
Hz corresponding to the thorax–
abdomen resonance
• most sensitive range for
transverse vibration is from 1 to
2 Hz corresponding to head–
neck resonance
• ISO 2631 discomfort boundaries RCB –
– 0.1 to 0.63 Hz for motion Reduced
sickness. Comfort
– most sensitive range is from 0.1 Boundary
to 0.315 Hz

Whole-body RCB vibration criteria, (a) RCB for

vertical (z-axis) vibration (b) RCB for lateral (x
Figure from Smith,2002 and y axis vibration)
 25 of 39

Analysis of vehicle response to road

excitation
• Most comprehensive of these
has seven degrees of freedom
• Three degrees of freedom for
the vehicle body (pitch,
bounce and roll)
• Vertical degree of freedom at
each of the four unsprung
masses.
• This model allows the pitch,
bounce and roll
• The suspension stiffness and
damping rates are derived
from the individual spring and
damping units Full vehicle model

Figure from Smith,2002

 26 of 39

Analysis of vehicle response to road

excitation
• Much useful information can be
derived from simpler vehicle
models.
• The two most often used for
passenger cars are the half-
vehicle model and the quarter
vehicle model.
• These have four and two degrees
of freedom respectively.
• Reduced number of degrees of
freedom
• In the case of the half vehicle Half and quarter
model, roll information is lost and vehicle models, (a)
for the quarter vehicle model half vehicle model,
pitch information is also lost (b) quarter vehicle
model

Figure from Smith,2002

 27 of 39

Response to road excitation

Pitch and bounce
characteristics
• Equivalent stiffness is
calculated as

• Generalized co-ordinates Notation for pitch–bounce analysis

are z and θ

Figure from Smith,2002

 28 of 39

Response to road excitation

• Equations simplify as

•If B=0 – the equations are uncoupled

•On a bump only pitching occurs – not desired
n ,bounce  A
n , pitch  C
 29 of 39

Response to road excitation

Roots of the equation are

Distance of O1 & O2 (Oscillation centres)from G

Figure from Smith,2002

 30 of 39

Response to road excitation

• If inertia coupling ratio is
– O1 and O2 are at suspension centers
– it becomes a 2 DOF (2 mass) system
(0.8 for sports cars ,1.2 for some
If w < wfront
, T > T drive
nf nr and on a cars)
nf nr bump
one gets a feeling of in phase motion
– No coupling of front and rear suspensions
and minimal pitching
better ride
– Two equivalent masses

<
 31 of 39

Suspension performance analysis

• Quarter car model
• Frequency ranges
– Low - 1 to 2 Hz – resonance of sprung mass
– High - 10–11 Hz – resonance of un-sprung or
wheel hop
• Suspension designer has selection of
characteristics and parameter values for
suspension springs and dampers to achieve
the desired suspension performance
 32 of 39

Suspension performance analysisRoad

holding
• Lowest transmissibility rs = kt/ks
(b)
(best ride) is produced
with the softest
suspension
• good road holding
requires a hard
suspension
– low transmissibility at the
wheel-hop frequency and (a)
in the mid-frequency range ride
between the two
resonances Effect of suspension stiffness on sprung and
unsprung mass transmissibilities, (a) sprung
mass transmissibility, (b) unsprung mass
transmissibility
Figure from Smith,2002
 33 of 39

Effect of Suspension Damping

sprung and
unsprung mass
transmissibilities,
(a) sprung mass
transmissibility,
(b) unsprung
mass
transmissibility

• Control of the sprung mass resonance requires high levels of

damping, but results in poor isolation in the mid-frequency
• Wheel-hop resonance also requires high levels of damping for its
control, but with the same penalties in the mid-frequency range
• 0.3 used for passenger cars
Figure from Smith,2002
 34 of 39

Refined non-linear analysis

• suspension spring and damper
non-linearities,
• random road excitation
• assessment of ride, tyre force
fluctuation and clearance
space limitations
• highly non-linear analysis
• Requires simulations in the
time domain
• ISO weighted acceleration
response of the sprung mass
denoted by the Discomfort
Parameter D is evaluated
ISO weighting characteristic for
vertical vehicle body acceleration

Figure from Smith,2002

 37 of 39

Controllable suspensions
• Hydraulic Control
• Speed of response, high
bandwidth, up to 60 Hz
• Actuator is driven by an on-board
pump controlled by signals
derived from transducers fitted to
the sprung and unsprung masses.
• Signals are processed in a
controller according to some
control law to produce a
controlled force at the actuator
• With practical limitations taken
into account, ride can be
improved by 20–30% for the
same wheel travel and dynamic
tire load when compared with a
passive suspension Fully active suspension

Figure from Smith,2002

 38 of 39

Slow active controlled suspensions

• Low bandwidth (up to approximately
6 Hz).
• The aim of this form of suspension is
to control the body mode to improve
ride.
• Above its upper frequency limit it
reverts to a conventional passive
system which cannot be bettered for
control of the wheel-hop mode.
• Such systems require much less
power than the fully active system,
with simpler forms of actuation.
• The potential performance gains are
less than those for a fully active
systems, but the viability is much
improved.

Slow active suspension

Figure from Smith,2002

 39 of 39

Another Controllable suspension

• Passive damper is replaced with a
controllable one.
• Designed to produce a controlled
force when called upon to dissipate
energy and then switches to a
notional zero damping state when
called upon to supply energy.
• Performance potential of this
suspension closely approaches that
of a fully active system under certain
conditions, but the hardware and
operational costs of this type of
suspension are considerably less
• Performance is impaired by changes
in payload which alter the suspension
working space : overcome by
combining the controllable damper
with some form of self-leveling Semi-active suspension
system

Figure from Smith,2002