Dynamic model of an air spring and integration into a vehicle dynamics model

Abstract

It is worthwhile to design a more accurate dynamic model for air springs, to investigate the dynamic behaviour of an air spring suspension, and to analyse and guide the design of vehicles with air spring suspensions. In this study, a dynamic model of air spring was established, considering the heat transfer process of the air springs. Two different types of air spring were tested, and the experimental results verified the effectiveness of the air spring model compared with the traditional model. The key factors affecting the computation accuracy were studied and checked by comparing the results of the experiments and simulations. The new dynamic model of the air spring was integrated into the full-vehicle multi-body dynamics model, in order to investigate the air suspension behaviour and vehicle dynamics characteristics. The co-simulation method using ADAMS and MATLAB/Simulink was applied to integration of the air spring model with the full-vehicle multi-body dynamics model.