Rafael Tavares1, Joan Vazquez Molina2, Monzer Sakka2, Miguel Dhaens2, Michael Ruderman1
16:00 - 16:20 | Wed 4 Sep | Room FH 7 | WeE7.1
Chassis technology is evolving towards active suspension, in which actuators can provide forces to each wheel individually. This overcomes the traditional trade-off between comfort and handling, at the expense of increased complexity and electric consumption. To reduce power demand, regenerative solutions capable of harvesting a certain amount of energy otherwise dissipated in vehicle suspensions and to enhance vehicle dynamics for improving ride comfort and road safety at the same time have been researched. In this paper, an active suspension based on a torsion bar is modeled and analyzed under the excitation from standardized road profiles according to the ISO 8608 norm. A skyhook controller was implemented in a quarter-car model for assessment of the ride comfort, power consumption and harvesting potential of a DC motor according to the four-quadrant operation, working as a generator. From simulations, results show that for a velocity of 50 km/h it is possible to harvest 50-60 W from a vehicle driving in a class C road with ride comfort trade-off. This constitutes around 25% of the power consumption of the active suspension system.