Exploiting Nonlinearities for Energy and Comfort Optimization in Electromechanical Vehicle Suspension Systems

Abstract

The subject of energy reuse has become an important issue nowadays, especially in systems that make use of non-renewable energies sources, such as in transportation systems for people and goods. In general, vehicle suspension have two distinct purposes, one of them is related to the stability of the vehicle during its operation and the second is related to the passenger's comfort, so that the suspension system is designed to reduce the disturbances caused by irregularities on the road. The common vehicle suspension system uses the static support element (spring) and also a fluid damper to dissipate vibratory energy as heat. This dissipated energy can be reused if an electromechanical conversion system is incorporated into the suspension by replacing the damper. Therefore, in the design of an electromechanical suspension system, besides the purposes of stability and comfort, it is also important to consider the reuse of energy. In general, these purposes are competing, which means that improving the performance of one causes degradation of the other.There are limitations when optimizing the performance of this system if the linear theory of dynamic systems is to be used, so one of the objectives of this project is to explore nonlinear theory to optimize stability, comfort and power generation in an electromechanical suspension system. The project is going to be developed through mathematical modeling and computational simulation using nonlinear systems methodologies. Experimental tests on a simplified system to validate the linear model are planned.