Proceedings 8th Modelica Conference, Dresden, Germany, March 20-22, 2011

Shock Absorber Modeling and Simulation Based on Modelica

Abstract
The purpose of shock absorbers are to dissipate impact energy, and control tire force variation, the shock absorber has great influence on both ride and handling performance of vehicles, and a great many previous researches have been done on modeling and simulation of the shock absorber. In this paper, a detailed model of shock absorber is established, which contains rebound chamber, compression chamber, piston valve assembly, base valve assembly and so on. Those models are built using modelica language, modelica is a language for modeling of physical systems, designed to support effective library development and model exchange. It is a modern language built on a causal modeling with mathematical equations and object-oriented constructs to facilitate reuse of modeling knowledge. Keywords: shock absorber; ride; handling; Modelica

Introduction

Shock absorber is widely used on vehicle. The purposes of the shock absorber are to dissipate the energy accumulated by the suspension spring displacement. The damping of the shock absorber for compression motion is usually less than that of rebound motion, in such a case, less force is transmitted to the vehicle when crossing a bump. By comparison, the shock absorber provides more damping force for rebound motion in order to dissipate energy stored in the suspension system quickly [1]. When the shock absorber is operated, hydraulic oil is passed between chambers via a system of hydraulic valves, and the damping effect is accomplished by the resistance of the oil when flowing through the valves. For the importance of the shock absorber on vehicle ride and handling performance, it is necessary to establish an accurate mathematical model of shock absorber, and there is a great wealth of literatures devoted to the modeling and simulation of the shock absorber. Herr [2] presented a computational fluid dynamics method

combined with a dynamic modeling technique. Which used to study the flow and performance of automotive hydraulic dampers / shock absorbers. Simms [3] established a non-linear hysteretic physical shock absorber model, and the processes utilized to identify the constituent parameters, and the model is validated by comparing simulated results to experimental data for a test damper, for three discrete frequencies of sinusoidal excitation of 1, 3 and 12 Hz. Talbott [4] presented a mathmatical model of a gascharged mono-tube racing damper. The model includes bleed orifice, piston leakage, and shim stack flows, and also includes models of the floating piston and the stiffness characteristics of the shim stacks. Chavan [5] study the damper lag and hysteresis which are the important parameters affecting the dynamic response of the hydraulic shock absorbers, and the response of the suspension unit to road excitation strongly influences motorcycle ride comfort. Modelica is a freely available, object-oriented language for modeling of large, complex, and heterogeneous physical systems. It is suited for multi-domain modeling, for example, mechatronic models in robotics, automotive and aerospace applications involving mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and control subsystems, process oriented applications and generation and distribution of electric power. Models in Modelica are mathematically described by differential, algebraic and discrete equations. No particular variable needs to be solved for manually. A Modelica tool will have enough information to decide that automatically. Modelica is designed such that available, specialized algorithms can be utilized to enable efficient handling of large models having more than one hundred thousand equations. Modelica is suited and used for hardware-in-the-loop simulations and for embedded control systems.

Shock Absorber Modeling

The shock absorber is one of the most important elements in a vehicle suspension system. For analyzing the influence of the uncertain parameters on the response of the shock absorber, a detailed analytical

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Proceedings 8th Modelica Conference, Dresden, Germany, March 20-22, 2011

model of the shock absorber is necessary. The first step of establishing the analytical model is to understand the physics of the shock absorber. Fig. 1 shows the schematic of the shock absorber. The shock absorber mainly consists of rebound chamber, compression chamber, reserve chamber, piston valve assembly and base valve assembly. When the piston valve assembly moves up and down, pressure differential is generated between the rebound chamber and the compression chamber, also there is pressure differential between the compression chamber and the reserve chamber. The pressure differential forces the fluid to flow through the valves and orifices. The damping force during the compression and rebound stoke are produced on account of the resistance offered by the fluid in flowing through the valves and orifices [6].
Piston Rod

By-pass Valve Spring

Check Valve Spring

Check Valve Disc

By-pass Valve Disc

Rebound Valve Disc

Rebound Valve Spring

Compression Valve Disc

(a) (b) Fig. 2 Fluid paths through the piston valve and base valve during the compression stoke
By-pass Valve Spring

Check Valve Spring

Check Valve Disc

By-pass Valve Disc

Rebound Valve Disc Rebound Valve Spring

Compression Valve Disc

Rebound Chamber

(a) (b) Fig. 3 Fluid path through the piston valve and base Piston Valve valve during the rebound stoke Assembly During the rebound, fluid in the rebound chamber Compression Chamber was forced flowing to the compression chamber, the Base Valve missing oil equivalent to the rod volume extracted Assembly from the rebound chamber is complemented from the reserve chamber to the compression chamber, and Fig. 1 The Schematic of the shock absorber the flow paths are shown in Fig. 3. During the compression, the piston rod moves down In Fig. 3(a), the by-pass valve is closed, when the and pushes the fluid in the compression chamber pressure differential between the rebound chamber flowing to the rebound chamber and reserve chamber. and the compression chamber is lower than the prelThe detailed structures of the piston valve assembly oad of the rebound valve spring, the rebound valve is and the base valve assembly are given in Fig. 2, the also closed, but the fluid will pass through the orificfluid paths during the compression are also shown in es on the disc. And when the pressure differential the figure. reaches the preload, the rebound valve disc will be As shown in Fig. 2(a), the by-pass valve and rebound opened. As depicted in Fig. 3(b), the compression valve are essential non-return valves, during the valve is closed, and the fluid will flow through the compression, the rebound valve disc is closed, but orifices on the disc from reserve chamber to comthere are four orifices on the rebound valve disc al- pression chamber. And the check valve will be low the fluid flow through, cross the holes of piston opened when the pressure differential between the body and by-pass valve disc to the rebound chamber. reserve chamber and the compression chamber The by-pass valve disc opens only if the pressure reaches the preload of the check valve spring. differential between the compression chamber and From discussed above, an equivalent scheme of the the rebound chamber reaches the preload of the by- shock absorber is built in Fig. 4. pass valve spring. In Fig. 2(b), the check valve is closed, and before the pressure differential between the compression chamber and reserve chamber reaches the preload of the compression valve disc, the compression valve will be closed. But the fluid can still pass through the four orifices on the compression valve disc. When the pressure differential exceeds the preload, the compression valve will be opened.
Reserve Chamber

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Proceedings 8th Modelica Conference, Dresden, Germany, March 20-22, 2011

Rebound chamber

By-pass valve

Orifices on the by-pass valve disc Circular holes on the piston body

Rectangular holes on the piston body

Rebound valve

Compression chamber

Orifices on the rebound valve disc Orifices on the check valve disc

Check valve

Circular holes on the base body Compression valve

Rectangular holes on the base body

Fig. 6 The modelica code of the check valve The mathematical model of the compression valve is presented as below:

Reserve chamber

Orifices on the compression valve disc

Fig. 4 The equivalent scheme of the shock absorber For a generic orifice or a hole, the flow rate Q can be expressed as a function of the pressure drop p :

Q = CA

2p

0 Qc = 2pc Clbc

if pc pc 0 if pc > pc 0
(3)

(1) = pc3 [(9r14 + 8r13r2 18r12 r22 + r24 ) / 6 4r13r2 ln(r1 / r2 )] Ec h

(4)

Where, C is the flow coefficient, A denotes the flow area of the orifice, is the density of the oil. The modelica code of the orifice is given in Fig. 5.

Where, Qc is the flow rate through the compression valve, pc is the pressure drop, lbc denotes the hydraulic perimeter of the compression valve disc, represents the deflection of the disc, Ec is the elastic

modulus of the disc, h is the thickness of the disc. r1 and r2 are the outer and inner contact radius between the disc and the compression valve body. Fig. 7 shows the modelica code of the compression valve.

Fig. 5 The modelica code of the orifice For a check valve with spring preload, the formula given below describes the relation between the flow rate Qv and pressure drop pv :
0 Qv = (pv p0 ) Adisc Clb ks if pv p0 2pv if pv > p0

(2)

Where, p0 is the preload of the spring, k s denotes the stiffness of the spring, lb represents hydraulic perimeter of the valve disc. Adisc is the area which oil pressure acts on the valve disc. The modelica code of the check valve is shown in Fig. 6. Fig. 7 The modelica code of the compression valve

Simulation

A shock absorber simulation model is established using MWorks/Modelica software, as shown in Fig. 8, the model contains the rebound valve, by-pass

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Proceedings 8th Modelica Conference, Dresden, Germany, March 20-22, 2011

valve, check valve, compression valve, rebound chamber, compression chamber, reserve chamber, the mass of the piston and so on. The input of the simulation model is a sine displacement to the piston rod. And Fig. 9 shows the response of the damping
force vs the velocity of the piston. Fig. 10 shows that the response of the damping force vs the displacement of the piston

the Modelica language is available for modeling multi-domain physical system.

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National High-Tech R&D Program, China (No. 2009AA044501).

References
[1] S. Subramanian, R. Surampudi and K. R. Thomson. Development of a Nonlinear Shock Absorber Model for Low-Frequency NVH Applications, SAE paper 2003-010860. F. Herr, T. Mallin, J. Lane and S. Roth. A Shock Absorber Model Using CFD Analysis and Easy5, SAE paper 1999-01-1322. A. Simms and D. Crolla. The Influence of Damper Properties on Vehicle Dynamic Behaviour, SAE paper 2002-01-0319. M. S. Talbott and J. Starkey. An Experimentally Validated Physical Model of a High-Performance Mono-Tube Damper, SAE paper 2002-01-3337. C. B. Chavan, M. K. Venkata, R. Babu and R. Bharat. Experimental Study on Effect of Damper Lag on Motorcycle Ride Comfort, SAE paper 2006-32-0096. L. C. Andreotti and S. N. Vannucci. Shock Absorber Mathematical Modeling, SAE paper 982959.

[2] Fig. 8 The simulation model of the shock absorber [3]

[4]

[5] Fig. 9 Response of the damping force vs the velocity of the piston

[6]

Fig. 10 Response of the damping force vs the displacement of the piston

Conclusions

In this paper, the mathematical model of the shock absorber which contains rebound chamber, compression chamber, piston valve assembly, base valve assembly is given in the paper, then a simulation model is established using MWorks/modelica software, the simulations are performed to evaluate the damping force of the shock absorber. The results shows that

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