International Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp.

2935 (2008) Copyright © 2008 KSAE

DOI 10.1007/s122390080004y 12299138/2008/03804

OPTIMIZED DESIGN FOR A MACPHERSON STRUT SUSPENSION

WITH SIDE LOAD SPRINGS

J. LIU1)*, D. J. ZHUANG1), F. YU1) and L. M. LOU2)

1)
State Key Laboratory of Vibration, Shock and Noise, Institute of Automotive Engineering,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
2)
China Spring Factory 291, Yunchuan Rd., Shanghai 200071, China

(Received 23 February 2006; Revised 20 October 2006)

ABSTRACTUndesired lateral force inevitably exists in a MacPherson suspension system, which is liable to damper rod’s
side wear and promotes the damper’s inner friction decreasing the ride performance from the suspension system. Substituting
a new side load spring with curved centerline for the conventional coil spring has been proven able to solve these problems
and Multi-body Dynamics combining with Finite Elements Analysis may be an efficient method in optimizing its design.
Therefore, taking a passenger car as example, a detailed multi-body dynamics model for the suspension system is built to
simulate forces exerted on the damper and the minimization of its lateral component is selected as the design target for the
spring. When the structure optimization of the side load spring is performed using FEA software ANSYS, its vertical and
lateral elastic characteristics, supported by test data, are analyzed. After importing FEA results back to the suspension system,
the dynamics simulation can be performed to validate the optimization result.

KEY WORDS : Multi-body system dynamics, Optimization design, MacPherson suspension, Side load spring

1. INTRODUCTION However, it is very difficult to directly define the

stiffness from this spring’s structure parameters since the
Due to its simpler structure and lower manufacture/service deformation mechanism of the side load spring is still
cost, the MacPherson strut suspension has been one of the inexplicit. The design is usually based on test data so that a
most popular suspension systems. However, the side force quicker and more economical method is demanded.
FQ inevitably exists at the top of damper rod as shown in Furthermore, traditional optimal design emphasizes parts
Figure 1. This side load may increase the inner friction instead of systems while the interactions between parts,
between damper parts and result in damper rod’s side wear. between parts and system and between systems can greatly
Moreover, when cars with MacPherson suspension are affect the general characteristics of a product. Therefore,
running on an even road, vertical vibration may be the optimization of a MacPherson suspension should firstly
transferred to the body directly since the slight road begin from the system level. Some researchers have done
excitation couldn’t overcome the inner friction to operate much contribution for it.
the suspension properly. Therefore, it is very important to
reduce the side load  FQ so that the optimized suspension
system can protect damper parts and improve ride
performance for the suspension system.
The traditional solution for this side load is to incline the
spring, but the install space of the suspension limits the
incline angle so that the side load can not be eliminated
completely. Recently, some car manufacturers adopt a new
type spring with a variant centerline developed by Muhr
and Schnaubelt (1989) to replace regular coil spring, which
permits a spring’s force line to deviate at an angle while the
spring is pressed between two parallel planes. By designing
the curvature properly, this kind of spring by itself can
offset the side load so that it is named a side load spring.

*Corresponding author. e-mail: zeh@163.com Figure 1. Side force exerted on piston rod.

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30 J. LIU, D. J. ZHUANG, F. YU and L. M. LOU

In 1994, Muhr and Schnaubelt introduced side load

spring’s advantages in reducing the side force of a Mac-
Pherson suspension (Wünsche and Muhr, 1994). Their
research was based on physical models and the experi-
mental results showed the remarkable improvement in
body acceleration and damper stroke which proved the new
spring’s effect in ride comfort performance. However, their
research object was only an existed side load spring and
their research aim is to determine the performance
character of the side load spring, while how to design a side
load spring is never mentioned.
In 1996, Satoshi Suzuki, Syuji Kamiya and Toshiyuki
Imaizumi introduced the FEA model of side load spring to
analyze the effects of structure parameters (Suzuki et al.,
1996), including the number of free coils and slenderness
ratio, on side load spring’s characteristics, then discussed
the arrangement of setting position of spring and tilting
angle of spring seat to minimized damper’s side force. A
large number of FEA models and experiment validations
are performed but their research was still limited within the
analysis of performance characteristics and the design
method was not involved.
In 2000, Toshiyuki Imaizumi and Takashi Gotoh
combined mechanical dynamics and FEA software to
perform the design procedure and analysis of damper’s
friction (Gotoh and Imaizumi, 2000). In their paper, at first
a FEA model for the side load spring and spring seats is
built to study the effects of spring end coil angles and seat
angles on side load spring’s reaction force line. Then a new
design procedure combining mechanical dynamics with
FEA software was represented. At last, the authors
evaluated the advantage of side load spring by comparing
the reaction force axis and suspension frictions of new
design with conventional springs. However, the design
procedure was not represented fully and clearly, and some Figure 2. Flow chart of optimization design.
improvements still need to be discussed for the design
procedure part of this paper, especially to design a side load
spring for an existing MacPherson suspension. (1) of the optimization design for MacPerson strut suspen-
Searching the best attach points on upper and lower seats of sion with a side load spring to reduce lateral load on the
the scalar spring to predict the ideal force line means damper rod. The design flow chart is shown in Figure 2.
repeating simulation and comparison for every set of attach In order to examine the forces exerted on the top mount
points, which could be substituted by an easier method. (2) of a damper rod, a detailed multi-body dynamics model for
How to determine the initial curvature of the spring and MacPherson front suspension system with origin coil
how to implement parameter study, especially for the spring is built at first, using multi-body dynamics software
curvature of spring’s centerline is not mentioned. (3) What ADAMS/CAR. In succeeding optimization, the lateral
is the centerline of the side load spring like exactly? The component of the damper forces is selected as the design
paper didn’t provided an accurate description for the side target for the side load spring to minimize the adverse
load spring’ curvature. (4) In evaluation of the suspension effect of lateral force. Then the initial value of the
optimization, the comparison criteria is suspension friction curvature of the side load spring is derived. Subsequently,
which is not supported in the default MacPherson template structure optimization for the side load spring is performed
of ADAMS/CAR module. The author may need to build a using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software ANSYS,
completely new model using ADAMS/CAR module or and the vertical and lateral elastic characteristics of the side
even ADAMS/View module which may cost too much load spring are analysed which are also compared with
time. experiment data. A 2nd-order curve is obtained as the
In this paper, taking an existing passenger car as ex- optimized curvature of the side load spring. After import-
ample, we proposed an easier and more detailed approach ing the FEA results to suspension system in ADAMS/CAR