Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE

Conferenceon Decision and Control

Maui, Hawi i USA, December 2003
WeM08-3
Performance Benefits in Passive Vehicle Suspensions Employing Inerters
Malcolm C. Smith and Fn-Cheng Wang
Abstract-A new ideal mechanical nne-port network ele-
ment named the inerter was recently introduced, and shown
to be realisable, with the property that the applied force is
proportional to the relative acceleration across the element. This
paper makes a comparative study of several simple passive sus-
pension strue, each containing at most one damper and inerter
as a preliminary investigation into the potential performance
advantages of the element. Improved performance for several
different measures in a quarter-car model is demonstrated
here in comparison with a conventional passive suspension
St rut A study of a full-car model is also undertaken where
performance improvements are also shown in comparison to
conventional passive suspension struts. A protntgpe inerter has
been built and tested. Experimental results are presented which
demonstrate a characteristic phase ad\,ance property which
cannot he achiwed with conventional passive struts consisting
of springs and dampers only.
I ., I NTRODUCTI ON
In [7] an alternative to the traditional electrical-
mechanical analogies was proposed in the'context of syn-
t hesi s of passive mechanical networks. Specifically, a new
two-terminal element called the inerter was introduced, as
a substitute for the mass element, with the property that
the force across the element is proportional io the relative
acceleration between the terminals. It was argued in [7] that
such an element is necessary for the synthesis of the full class
of physically realisable passive mechanical impedances. In-
deed, the traditional suspension strut employing springs and
dampers only and avoiding the mass element has dynamic
characteristics which are greatly limited in comparison. The
consequence is that, potentially, there is scope to improve the
vehicle dynamics of a passively suspended vehicle by using
suspension struts employing inerters as well as springs and
dampers. It is the purpose of the present paper to give more
detailed consideration to these possible performance benefits
using some standard performance measures for quarter-car
and full-car vehicle models. In addition, some experimental
test results on a prototype inerter will be reporied.
. .
. .
11. BACKGROUND ON THE I NERTER
The force-current analogy. between mechanical. and elec-
force ft cuiient
velocity ct voltage
mechanical ground ct 'electrical ground
trical 'networks has the following correspondences:
spring U inductor
damper ct resistor.
Th i s work was rupponed in pan by the EPSRC.
Tel. t 44 1223 332745, Email: mcs@eng.cam.ae.uk. Depanment of En-
Tel. +886 2 23630231 ex1 4079. Emaii: fcw@ntu.edu.tw. Depanment of
ginccnnp, Univerrily of Cambndp, Cambridge CB2 1PZ U.K.
Mechanical Enpineering. National Taiwan University. Taipei. Taiwan
0-7803-7924-1/03/$17.00 02003 IEEE 2258
rack pinions
I I
gear ayw'heel terminal 1
i
temunal 2
Fig. I. Schematic of a mechanical model of an inener.
Additionally the mass element has always been taken as the
analogue of the capacitor, even though it has been appreciated
(6, p. 1111, [2, p. 10-51 that the mass is strictly analogous
only to a capacitor with one terminal connected to ground.
This is due to the fact that Newton's Second Law refers
the acceleration of the mass to a fixed point in an initial
frame, i.e. mechanical ground. The restrictive nature of the
mass element in networks has the disadvantage that electrical
circuits with ungrounded capacitors do not have a direct
spring-mass-damper analogue. This imposes a restriction on
the class of passive mechanical impedances which can be
physically realised. A further problem is that the suspension
st r ut needs to have small mass compared to that of the
vehicle body and wheel hub, which itself imposes further
restrictions on the class of mechanical impedances which
may be practically realised using the classical spring-mass-
damper analogue.
To remedy the situation a network element called the
inerter was introduced in [7] with the following definition.
The (ideal) i nener is a two-terminal mechanical device with
the propeny that the equal and opposite force F applied at the
terminals is proportional to the relative acceleration between
the nodes, i.e. F =b(C2 - G I ) where q, u2 are the velocities
of the two terminals and b is a constant of proportionality
called the i nerf ance which has units of kilograms. The stored
energy in the inerter is equal to $ b ( v 2 - v 1 ) ~ .
A simple approach to provide a physical realisation of an
inener is to take a plunger sliding in a cylinder which drives a
flywheel through a rack, pinion and gears (see Fig. I). Such a
realisation may be viewed as approximating its mathematical
ideal in the same way that real springs, dampers, capacitors
etc. approximate their mathematical ideals.
A table of the circuit symbols of the six basic electrical
and mechanical elements, with the inerter replacing the mass,
is shown in Fig. 2. The symbol chosen for the inerter rep-
resents a flywheel. The impedance of a mechanical element,
in the force-current analogy, is defined by Z( s ) =C( s ) / F( s )
I Mechanical I Electrical I
incner i capacitor
F = C ( V ~ - - U I ] resistor
Fig. 2.
admicunee Y(r1.
Circuit symbols and correspondences with defining equations and
(where-denotes Laplace transform, U is the relative velocity
across the element and F is the force) and the admittance is
given by Y ( s ) =l / Z(s).
111. SUSPENSION STRUTS
We now introduce a few simple networks as candidates
for a suspension strut each of which contains at most one
damper and one inener. While this does not exploit the full
class of positive-real impedances/admittances, it nevertheless
provides a number of new possibilities to investigate which
are relatively simple to realise in practice.
Fig. 3(a) shows the conventional parallel spring-damper
arrangement. In Fig. 3(b) there is a relaxation spring kb in
series with the damper. Figs. 3(c), 3(d) show a parallel spring-
damper augmented by an inerter in parallel or in series with
the damper. When the spring stiffness k is fixed it often
proves relatively straightfonvard to optinuse over the two
remaining parameters b and c in these configurations.
The series arrangement of Fig. 3(d) has a potential
disadvantage in that the node between the damper and inerter
has an absolute location which is indeterminate in the steady-
state. This could give rise to drift of the damper and/or inerter
to the limit of travel in the course of operation. Toremedy
this the arrangement of Fig. 3(e) is proposed with a pair of
springs of stiffness kl, which we call cenuing springs, which
may be preloaded against each other. Fig. 3(f) is sinular but
allows for unequal springs kl and k z . Figs. 3(h), 3(g) differ
from Figs. 3(9, 3(e) by having an additional relaxation spring
kb.
Iv. THE QUARTER-CAR MODE1
An elementary model to consider the theory of suspen-
sion systems is the quarter-car of Figure 4 consisting of the
sprung mass ms, the unsprung mass mu and a tyre with
spring stiffness k,. The suspension sfruf provides an equal
and opposite force on the sprung and unsprung masses and
is assumed here to be a passive mechanical admittance Q( s )
which has negligible mass. The equations of motion in the
(a) layout SI
(C) layout s3
(e) layout S5
k
(gi layout S l
Fig. 3. The eight suqmsion layouts
k (f
(b) layout S2
(d) l ayout S4
k
(f) layout S6
ri
k
2259
Fig. 4. Qumersar vehicle model
Laplace transformed domain are:
mrs2Zs = kx-~Q(~)(?s-?,,), (1)
m, s ?, = s Q( 7) ( t S - & ) + k , ( % (2)
In this paper we will fix the parameters of the quarter-car
model as follows: i ns =250 kg, mu =35 kg, k, =150 N/mm.
A. Petjormance measures
There are a number of practical design requirements for a
suspension systemsuch as passenger comfort, handling, tyre
norntal loads, huts on suspension travel etc. which require
careful optimisation. In the simplified quaner-car model these
can be translated approximately into specifications on the
disturbance responses fromFs and e, to i s and zu. Wenow
introduce several basic measures.
Wefirst consider road disturbances. Following [SI a time-
varying displacement i ( r ) is derived from traversing a rigid
road profile at velocity V . Further, let z(1) have the form
:(x) where x is the distance in the direction of motion. Thus
;(f) =z ( Vr ) . Moreover the corresponding spectral densities
are related by
1 .,
V
Sf) =-s- (n)
where f is frequency in cycleslsecond, n is the wavenumher
in cycleslnietre and f =I I V . Now consider an output variable
?(r) u8hich is related to ;(t) by the transfer function H( s ) .
Then the expectation of y2(t) is given by:
E[yZ(t)] = Lw m I H(j Znf )I S (f )df
Here we will use the following spectrum[ 5]
S; ( n) =K J ~J - (d/cycl e)
where K is a road roughness parameter. Wetake V =25 ms-
and K =5 x mcycle-I. The r.ni.s. body vertical accel-
eration paranteter J I (ride comfort) is defined by
where T;,? denotes the transfer function from . ? to and
I l f ( j o) 112 =( &j - z I f ( j o) I Zdo) l / is the standard Hz-
norm. Similarly the r.ni.s. dynamic tyre load parameter 53 is
defined by
Another factor to be considered is the ability of the sus-
pension to withstand loads on the sprung mass, e.g. those
induced by braking, accelerating and cornering. Following
[SI we make use of the following measure for this purpose:
where 11.lIm represents the 3f,-norm, which is the supre-
mumof the modulus over all frequency. Note that this nom
equals the maximal power transfer for square integrable
signals. so it is a measure of dynamic load carrying.
B. Optimisation .S individual performance measures
This section considers only the optimisation of individ-
ual performance measures. Some results on multi-objective
optimisation are given in [IO].
Our approach is to fix the static stiffness of the suspension
strut and then optimise over the remaining parameters. This
will be done for a range of static stiffness settings from k =
10 N/mm to k =120 N / m. This covers a range from softly
sprung passenger cars through sports cars and heavy goods
vehicles up to racing cars. It should be noted that the static
stiffness in SI to S4 is equal to k hut not for the other four
struts. For example, for layout S8 the static stiffness is equal
to: k +(k; +k; +k ; ) - I ,
I ) Optimisarion of J1 (ride quality): The results of
optinusation are shown in Fig. 5. It was found that the
relaxation spring kb did not prove helpful to reduce J I .
This left five of the eight smuts in Fig. 3 to he considered.
Optimisation for layouts SI, S3, and S4 appears to be convex
in the free parameters. Both the parallel (S3) and series (S4)
arrangements gave improvements over the conventional strut
(SI) for the full range of static stiffness with S4 giving
the biggest improvement for stiff suspensions. It should he
noted that the parallel arrangement gives lower values of
inertance than the series arrangement. For example, at the
midrange value of k =60 Nlmm we have b =31.27 kg and
h =333.3 kg respectively.
For layouts S5 and S6 the optimisation problemappears
no longer to he convex in the parameters. The Nelder-
Mead simplex method was used for various starting points.
Solutions were found which gave a clear improvement on the
series arrangement S4 particularly for softer suspensions. For
2260
. ,b
static stiffness
(b) Percentage improvement in I!
(c) optimal damper selling
s , . . . , ,
.,b
stauc stirmess
(d) optimal inener setting
the arrangement S6 the improvement was at least 10% across
the whole stiffness range. For much of the range kl and k2
were about 113 and 1112 of the static stiffness respectively.
2) Opriniisarion .f Jz (tyre loads): The results of op-
timisation are given in [lo]. Here it was found that the
relaxation spring kb helped to reduce J? for lower values
of static stiffness. The results show an improvement in Jz
with parallel (S3) and series (S4) arrangements if the static
stiffness is large enough, with the series arrangement again
giving the biggest improvement.
3) Opri mi sari on of Js (dynamic load carrying): The
results of optimisation of J5 are given in [IO]. There is a
theoretical minimum for Js equal to the d.c. gain of the
transfer function Tp,+:,, which is equal to (k;' +k; ' ) - '
where ko is equal to the static stiffness of the suspension.
This can beachieved using layout SI fork less than about
68 NI" and using layout S3 for k up to about 100 Nlmm.
Using layout S4 the theoretical minimum for Js is not
achievable beyond k =68 Nlnun. In contrast to J I and J3
it appears to be the parallel arrangement (S3) which is more
effective than the series one (S4) to reduce Jr.
V. THE FULL-CAR MODEL
We now consider a standard full-car model (see [9]
for diagram and equations). The following parameters taken
from 191will be used i ns =1600 kg, Io =1000 kg m', la =
450kgm2, rf =0.75m, r ,=0.75m, I f =1.15m, I ,=
1.35 m, m i =SO kg, m, =50 kg. kt f =250 N/mm, k,, =
250 N/mm. We use a full-car stochastic road disturbance
performance measure based on a method of Heath [I ].
Our approach is to optimise J I and Jz (defined below)
over choices of the front and rear dampers c l and c, for the
conventional suspension (layout SI), or over choices of the
front and rear inerters and dampers b f , b,, c f and c, for
layout S3 at each comer, and including centring springs kif
and kl , for layout SS. Wewill take a fixed static stiffness for
each suspension ~ t ~ t equal to 100 N/mm. We will assume
the vehicle has a forward velocity V =25 dsec (90 k").
A. The oprimisation of J I (ride quality)
We will compute the r.m.s. body acceleration param-
eter J I =yms for the transntission path Ti+$ with U =
[Z,,.Z,~.Z~~,Z,~~' and y =[$,ie.T0]'. The results are il-
lustrated in Table I. It is noted that for layout SI the
optimisation of J , over c f and c, appears to beconvex. But
the optimisations for layouts S3, S5~do not necessarily find a
global optimum. Similar to the quarter-car case we observe
an improvement in both parallel and series arrangements.
Fio. 5.
layout S1 (dot-dashed). layout S5 (dotted) and layout S6 (solid).
The optimisation of It on: layout SI (bold). layout S3 (dashed),
2261
I
I layout I optimal J I I Parameter settings
-.
9.26% improvement
SI 1 J1 =2.7358
S3 1 JI =2.5122 I hi =31. 07, 6, =44. 23
I c f =2.98, c, =3.70
, ,
~,
cf =3.24. cr =3.94
kj, =7.85, k i , =14.'10
I 8.17% improvement I c( =2.32, c, =3. 16
s5 I . I, =2.4823 I h i =332.82. h. =374.03
layout
SI
S3
optimal Ji Parameter settings
53 =1.6288
J x =1.6288
cf =3.82, c, =3.85
h i =0 , h, = O
B. The optimisation of 51 (tyre loads)
We now conipute the r.m.s. dynanuc tyre load pa-
rameter 53 =yms for the transmission path %, , , with
U [:rL,~r2.~r3,~r41' and Y =Ikt t (Zul - ~ r , ) . k r , ( ~ u ~ -
z,J k,,(zu, - zri), k,,(z,,, - z r 4) ] ' . The results ae illustrated
in Table 11. Again it is noted that for layout SI the opti-
misation of 53 over c, and c, appears to be convex. But
the optinusations for layouts S3, S5 do not necessarily find
a global optimum. Similar to the quarter-car case at some
values of static stiffness an improvement is obtained with
the series arrangement but not with the parallel.
6, =710.74, b, =418.42
TABLE I1
Pl i RFOKMASCE INDEX 13 f xI O-3) WI TH VAKIOUS ILAYOUTS AT EACII
Wlllilll. STATION, PliKCI(NTAGE I MPKOVl i MBNI ASD PAKAMBTEK
SI TTI NGS ( k ' s A R E I N NI MM, c' s AKE I N NSI MM. 6's ARE IN KG).
VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A prototype inerter of rack and pinion design has been
built and tested at Cambridge University Engineering De-
partment. A picture of the inerter mechanism is shown in
Fig. 6. There are two gearing stages with combined ratio of
19.54:l. The flywheel has a mass of 0.225 kg and the total
inerfarice of the device is approxiniately 726 kg. A clutch
safety mechanismis integrated into the flywheel to prevent
loads in excess of 1.5 kN being delivered to the piston. The
device has a stroke of about 80 mm.
The inerter was tested in a series arrangement with
centring springs as shown in Fig. 7 using the Cambridge
University mechanics laboratory Schenck hydraulic ram. A
series of single sinewave excitations was applied at a set of
discrete frequencies from 0.05 to 20 Hz. Three signals were
measured the total force in the SINI, the total displacement,
and the relative displacement across the inerter. Gains and
phase shifts for the different signal paths were calculated
frequency by frequency [31.
The ideal linear model of the strut is that of layout S5
but without the main spring k . The admittance Q of the strut
is given by the following expression:
(4)
It is noted that there is a zero at the frequency w =m.
Let D, and Db represent the displacements of the damper
and inerter respectively, and let the total strut displacement
be D =Db +D,. Then the following transfer functions can
be derived
(bs'+ k)(cs + k l )
s ( bs 2+c s +k+kl ) '
Ideal frequency responses were calculated for'each of
the transfer functions in (4). ( 5) and ( 6) with the following
parameters, which were estimated by measurements on the
individual physical components: k =5.632 NI", kl =
9.132 NI", c =4.8 Ndmm, b =726 kg. In addition,
stiction nonlineaities were incorporated into the model in
parallel with the inerter and damper by adding a fofce
20 sign(Db) to the inerter force, and a force 30 sign(&)
to the damper force, corresponding to physically measured
stiction forces. Sinewave tests on a nonlinear simulation
model were carried out at the same set of frequencies as
the practical experinients. The resulting time response data
was analysed 'in a similar way to produce a corresponding
set of frequency responses for comparison. The Bode plot
corresponding to the transfer function in (4) for (i) ideal
linear, (ii) nonlinear sinidation and (iii) experimental results,
is shown in Fig. (8). It was felt that the agreement between
simulation and experiment was relatively good-in particular
the phase advance was clearly in evidence in the admittance
Q-and optimisation of parameters to get a closer fit between
simulation and experiment was not attempted.
VIl . CONCLUSIONS
This paper represents a preliminary optimisation study
of the possible benefits of the inerter in vehicle suspension
systems. For some relatively simple struts it was shown that
improvements could be obtained in a quarter-car vehicle
model across a wide range of static suspensions stiffnesses.
Improvements of about 10 % or greater were shown for
measures of ride, tyre normal load and handling. For certain
combinations of these measures, good simultaneous improve-
ment was obtained. Improvements were also shown for a full-
car model. A prototype inerter was built and tested in a series
arrangement with centring springs and shown to exhibit the
expected phase advance property.
VI I I . ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are most grateful to Samuel Lesley, Peter Long,
Neil Houghton, John Beavis, Barry Puddifoot and Alistair
Fig. 6. Pmlolype inenel
Bode plat of admittance Q
I
10. 100
Frequency (Hz)
1 0
Fig. 8.
nonlinear simulation with friction (darhedl. experimental dam (solid).
Bode plot of ihe addmitiance Q(r): linear model (dash-doned).
Ross for their work in the design and manufacture of the
inener prototype. Wewould also like to thank David Cebon
for making the Vehicle Dynamics Groups hydraulic ram
available to us, and to Richard Roebuck for his assistance
in the experiments.
IX. REFERENCES
[ I ] A.N. Heath Application of the isotropic road rough-
ness assummion. Journal of Sound and Vibration,
i i 5(i ), 13i : i ~, i9s7.
[21 E.L. Hixson, Mechanical Impedance, Shock arid
Vibration Handbook, 2nd edition, C.M. Harris, C.E.
Crede (Fds.), Cha ter 10, McGraw-Hill, 1976.
[3] L. Ljnng System fdentification, Theory for the User,
Prentice-Hall, 1987.
[4] A. Papoulis Probability. Random Variables, and
Stochastic Process, McCraw-Hill,. 1991.
[5] J.D. Robson Road surface descnption and vehicle
response, International Joumal of Vehicle Design,
Vol. 1, no. 1, 25-35. 1979.
[6] J.L. Shearer, A.T. Murphy and H.H. Richardson, In-
tmduction to s stem dwaniics, Addison-Wesley, 1967.
[71 M.C. Smith hyntheiis of mechanical networks: the
inerter, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Contml, 47.
164-1662, 2002.
[SI M.C. Smith and G.W. Walker, A mechanical network
approach to performance capabilities of passive sus-
pensions, Proceedings of the Workshop on Modelling
and Control of Mechanical Systems, Imperial College,
London, 17-20 J une 1997, pp. 103-117, Imperial
..
College Press.
191 M.C. Smith and F-C. Wann. 2002. Controller Pa-
-.
. _
rameterization for Disturbance Response Decoupling:
Application to Vehicle Active Suspension Control,
IEEE Trans. on Con1r.S 1st. Tech., 10, 393407.
[lo] M.C. Smith and F-C. d--, an- 2003, Performance Ben-
efits in Passive Vehicle Suspensions Employing Inert-
ers, submitted for publication.
Fig. 7. lnener in sener wiih damper with eentnng springs
2263