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A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles

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DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO1112

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Engineering
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A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles

A H Kalyan Raj and C Padmanabhan
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering 2009 223: 1435
DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO1112

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 1435

A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles

A H Kalyan Raj and C Padmanabhan*
Machine Design Section, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai,
India

The manuscript was received on 5 January 2009 and was accepted after revision for publication on 16 June 2009.

DOI: 10.1243/09544070JAUTO1112

Abstract: Passive linear suspension systems are limited in their ability to improve ride
characteristics owing to the conflicting interdependence between ride comfort, road hold-
ing, and space occupied by the suspension system. Non-linear systems can improve the
performance of passive designs by de-linking the various metrics involved in ride comfort.
Based on the control strategies used in semi-active suspensions, a new non-linear damper
design is proposed, where the damping rapidly changes with stroke. This design has been
fabricated and tested to validate the analytical expressions governing the damping as a function
of stroke. Experimental results show excellent agreement with analytical expressions. The novel
damper model has been used along with an existing non-linear spring design, in a quarter-car
simulation. The results indicate that the non-linear design leads to significantly lower
acceleration levels when compared with a linear system, without any compromise on other
metrics.

Keywords: non-linear damper, passive suspension, ride comfort

1 INTRODUCTION improvement in ride comfort while decoupling vari-

The current passenger car market is driven by lower
cost with improved fuel efficiency and ride comfort.
Designing suspension systems in the ultra-low-cost
car segment to achieve superior ride comfort, while
sustaining rigorous safety standards, is quite chal-
lenging. New-generation cars need to be of lower
weight for improved fuel efficiency. Use of semi-
active and active suspensions can improve ride
comfort significantly but result in increased use of
energy for real-time adjustments in stiffness and
damping, leading to reduced fuel efficiency.
There is a need for innovative passive suspension
systems, which have to be non-linear, as linear
systems face severe limitations owing to their
conflicting interdependence between ride comfort,
road holding, and space occupied by the suspension
system. A passive solution with a properly designed
non-linear system could bring about significant
*Corresponding author: Machine Design Section, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai, 600034, India.
email: mouli@iitm.ac.in; moulinet@gmail.com
ous metrics mentioned earlier. Passive, active, and
semi-active suspensions have been studied exten-
sively. Ryba [1, 2] used a simple two-degree-of-
freedom linear suspension model and concluded
that the natural frequency could be lowered until a
certain point without increasing the dynamic tyre
load. When the ratio of unsprung mass to sprung
mass is about 40 per cent, reductions in suspension
natural frequencies are achieved at the cost of
increased dynamic tyre load. He also argues that as
the natural frequency decreases, the damping force
should reduce for better ride comfort. Karnopp [3]
suggested the concept of an active damper, which is
based on the body velocity feedback. It is shown that
a damper where the damping changes rapidly is
better at meeting the conflicting requirements of
suspension design. Sharp and Hassan [4] explored
the possibility of variable damping and stiffness in a
passive suspension design and concluded that if the
damping can be increased as the road roughness
increases or when steering manoeuvres are attemp-
ted, then the overall performance of the suspen-
sion system improves. Later, Sharp and Hassan [5,
6] investigated semi-active dissipative dampers as

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1436 A H Kalyan Raj and C Padmanabhan
an improvement over the variable dampers. They
showed that when the damper force law includes
the wheel-to-body relative displacement informa-
tion in addition to the velocity signals, the perfor-
mance is better.
Elmadany and El-Tamimi [7] have investigated
four different damper designs, namely asymmetrical,
quadratic, acceleration sensitive, and semi-active
dampers. The first three are non-linear passive
damper designs, whereas the last one is an active
damper. The asymmetric damper performance was
found to be dependent on the input size and sense
(positive or negative) of the road disturbances. The
quadratic damper on the other hand performed
worse than a linear viscous damper as it led to
increased acceleration levels with the constraint of
equal rattle space. The acceleration sensitive damper
was also shown to be only marginally better than a
linear viscous damper. A semi-active damper based
on an on–off control strategy, is shown to improve
the ride comfort levels significantly when compared
with a linear viscous damper, without compromising
the road holding and suspension rattle space.
Su et al. [8] have proposed a tunable damper con-
cept for tracked vehicles. As remarked by Elma-
dany and El-Tamimi [7], they too report that the
quadratic damping force is not effective for vib-
ration isolation. Hence, the damper is equipped
with compressional and extensional pressure relief
valves to limit the pressure differential and conse-
quently modulate the damping force. This is shown
to improve the ride characteristics of the vehicle.
More recently, Khajavi and Abdollahi [9] have
compared a passive suspension with a semi-active
damper based on fuzzy logic. The fuzzy logic control
is based on the relative velocity between the wheel
and body, as well as the absolute velocity of the
body. This is shown to reduce the sprung mass
response by nearly 25 per cent for a step input. The
damping coefficients vary rather rapidly at high
displacements and reduce as the body displace-
ments become small. Mántaras and Luque [10] have
examined seven different active and semi-active
suspension designs using a quarter-car model and
conclude that a fuzzy-logic-based active suspension
gives the best performance, while interestingly the
‘sky-hook’ damper concept is also quite good.
From the review of the literature on active and
semi-active suspensions it is clear that a two-way
switchable damper has higher damping coefficient
in the forward stroke than in reverse – this is found
to improve ride comfort largely without any com-
promise on other metrics [7]. Active suspensions
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also seem to tune the system parameters such that it
stiffens up for larger strokes. Both the spring stiffness
and damping constant are increased for larger
strokes [4–6].
The major objective of this investigation is to
showcase a new passive damper design capable of
improving ride comfort without compromising other
metrics. Simulations using a quarter-car model are
carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
proposed design and experiments are performed to
validate the mathematical model for the damper.
The following section discusses the rationale for
the new damper design and also provides details of a
non-linear spring presented earlier in the literature.
This is followed by section 3 on simulations using a
quarter-car model, which demonstrate the effective-
ness of the damper. Section 4 explains the experi-
ment carried out to validate the damper model and
finally in section 5 the significant outcomes of the
investigation are highlighted.
2 SCHEMATIC DESIGN
From the results available in the literature it can be
inferred that damping coefficient needs to increase
with suspension stroke. Now, the sprung mass
acceleration also depends on rate of road input,
rather than road input alone, but the spring itself is
insensitive to rate of input as it operates only on
displacement [11, 12].
For a linear damper, the derivative of the dam-
per force with respect to stroke is equal to zero.
However, if a damper was to be designed whose
damping increases with stroke, then the gradient of
the force increases and is also sensitive to road input
rate. With a linear damper, for a non-linear spring
with rate k(x) progressively increasing with x, LF/
Lx 5 k(x) increases with x. Hence, essentially, if the
quantity LF/Lx increases with x, ride comfort would
have improved.
Now, if the term Lc/Lx is made non-zero, i.e. if c
increases with x so that LF/Lx progressively increases
with x, as in the earlier case of a non-linear spring,
the response would become sensitive to the road
input velocity ẋ as well. This is the basic philoso-
phy behind conceiving a design that has c increas-
ing with stroke x. The desired damping coefficient
variation with stroke is shown as curve A in Fig. 1.
In this section, schematic designs of both the new
non-linear damper developed in the present work
and also the already-in-use constant-pitch conical
spring are presented.
JAUTO1112
 A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles 1437

Fig. 1 Two kinds of curve possible for damping c increasing with stroke x

2.1 Schematic design of the new non-linear  

damper 3pmD3 2t0
clin ~ 1z ð2Þ
4t03 D
As shown in Fig. 2, the non-linear damper shall
consist of a cylindrical piston of diameter D, length L
translating inside a conical bore of slope a filled with
a viscous liquid of viscosity m. The initial clearance 2.2 Schematic design of constant pitch conical
between the piston’s rear end and the conical bore at spring
the start of stroke, from which position the displace-
ment x is measured, is t0. As the stroke x occurs, the For the conical contoured spring with constant
clearance between the piston and the conical bore pitch, there exists a closed-form expression for load
decreases, and thus viscous force due to the liquid as a function of the deformed length of the spring.
increases. Hence, in effect, the damping c increases This has been derived based on the spring geometry
and the expression for c as a function of stroke x is parameters by Rodriguez et al. [14]; when the spring
derived along the lines of the method presented for a is in the linear regime the load as a function of spring
constant c damper in pages 69–71 of reference [13] length is given by
( " # Gd4
3pmD3 1 1 1 ðL0 {LÞ; k~   ; L [ ½LT , L0
ð3Þ
c~ { 2na D21 zD22 ðD1 zD2 Þ
4a 2 ðt0 {aðLzxÞÞ2 ðt0 {axÞ2


2 1 1 with L0 the free length, D1 and D2 are the smallest
z { ð1Þ
D t0 {aðLzxÞ t0 {ax and largest mean coil diameters of the conical
(
spring, d is the wire diameter, na is the number of
For the cylindrical damper, the slope a becomes zero active coils, and G is the rigidity modulus of the
and it can be verified by applying l’Hôpital’s rule spring material. Here the length LT is the transition
to the above expression, that the linear damper co- length where the spring now becomes non-linear
efficient as given in reference [13] becomes and is given by

PT Gd 4 ðLa {LS Þ
LT ~L0 { ; PT ~ ;
k 8D32 na
( "   #)1=2
2 D2 {D1 2
LS ~ max 0,ðna d Þ { ð4Þ
2

with La 5 L0 2 nid is the actual spring length, where

ni is the coil influence parameter to account for the
end coils in the conical spring and LS is the solid
height of the spring. When the spring deformation
L [ [LS, LT], then the non-linear force–deflection
relation becomes

8 "  #1=2 93
 3 < 1=2 =
k1 2 k2
Fig. 2 Cylindrical piston in a conical dashpot non- P ðLÞ~ 1{ 2 1z 2 {1 ð5Þ
linear damper 2 : k1 ;

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1438 A H Kalyan Raj and C Padmanabhan

where x1 and x2 are the displacements of the un-

k2 k6 sprung mass mus and sprung mass ms, kt is the
k1 ~k3 { ; k2 ~{ ;
3k3 k5 tyre stiffness, ct is the tyre damping, fs is the non-
8 "    #1=2 91=3 linear suspension force, and x0 is the random road
<k k4 2 k2 3 =
4 profile input.
k3 ~ z z ;
:16 16 3 ;
  3.1 Road profile input
k7 {L0 zL 2
k4 { ð6Þ
k5 The road profile used for simulating the designs is
similar to the widely used reference [7], which is the
response of a first-order filter to white noise
2D41 na
k5 ~ ; x_ 0 ~{avx0 zgðt Þ ð9Þ
Gd 4 ðD2 {D1 Þ
" #1=3
3 Gd4 ðLa {Ls Þ4 The solution to above equation for x0(t) is used as
k6 ~ ;
8ðD2 {D1 Þ na road input to the quarter-car model shown in Fig. 4.
Here, a is the road roughness parameter and is set as
ðLa {Ls ÞD2
k7 ~ ð7Þ 0.151/m for a smooth road, 0.451/m for a rough
D2 {D1 road, v is the speed of the car, and g(t) is white noise.
For the simulations, a car moving on a smooth road
These expressions along with equation (1) represent- is considered as, if the non-linear systems were to be
ing the non-linear damper are used in the simulation practically effective, they would have to perform
model described in the following section. better even on smooth roads. Some studies are
carried out on a rough road, however, to ensure that
3 QUARTER-CAR SIMULATION the non-linear design indeed improves ride comfort.
Hence, a 5 0.151/m is used and, say, the car’s
In this section, a quarter-car simulation incorpo- velocity is v 5 20 m/s. With these values, the output
rating the non-linear damper design mentioned x0(t) of the differential equation (8) shall be taken as
in section 2.1 is undertaken along with a linear the road profile; the maximum displacement input,
spring as well as a conical spring. The simulation for v 5 20 m/s, is 0.0292 m. All simulations with the
was done using the SIMULINK toolbox of MATLAB random input are carried out for a time period of
7.0 and the quarter-car model is shown in Fig. 3. The 15 s; a longer time period has also been tried out and
governing equations are given by it is established that 15 s is sufficient to make design
comparisons.
€1 {fs ðx2 {x1, x_ 2 {x_ 1 Þzct x_ 1 zkt x1
mus x
~ct x_ 0 zkt x0 3.2 Design parameters for the strut
ms x€2 zfs ðx2 {x1, x_ 2 {x_ 1 Þ~0 Values for various design parameters and dimen-
ð8Þ sions in the non-linear damper as well as the conical

Fig. 3 Schematic representation of the quarter-car used for simulation

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 A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles 1439

Fig. 4 Road input to the quarter-car model

spring explained in section 2 were chosen in such a
way that the performance metrics for road-holding
capability and space occupied by the suspension,
root mean square (r.m.s.) values of the ratio of dyn-
amic to static tyre deflection and the suspension
displacement respectively, remain the same as that
of the linear system used for comparison in ref-
erence [7].
The values for the linear system benchmark are as
follows.
1. Values k 5 20 kN/m, kt 5 200 kN/m, ct 5 300 Ns/m,
c 5 1837 Ns/m are used.
2. In order to compare with the available literature,
the mass of the car considered was 800 kg; hence,
for the quarter car, ms is taken as 200 kg and the
unsprung mass mus is taken as 30 kg.
3. According to reference [7], the following are the
evaluation metrics that were used to compare
various models:
(a) passenger comfort is measured by r.m.s.
acceleration of the sprung mass;
(b) road-holding capability is measured by ratio of
dynamic tyre deflection to static tyre deflection;
(c) space occupied by the suspension is mea-
sured by r.m.s. suspension deflection;
(d) settling time is no more than 2–3 oscillations
(approximately 1.5 s) [4].
Hence, the choice of various parameters for the non-
linear design is made ensuring the metrics (b) to (d)
are unaltered while seeking for improvement in ride
comfort. Two combinations are simulated: the non-
linear damper design mentioned in Fig. 2 with linear
spring of k 5 20 kN/m (the same as that of the
completely linear system) and also the constant-
pitch conical spring. The conical spring geometry
and material parameters are given in Table 1 and the
damper parameters are shown in Table 2 (for linear
and non-linear cases).

Table 1 Combination of conical spring geometry parameters for model

Serial no. Property name Symbol Value
1 Mean diameter of smallest active coil D1 37.5 mm
2 Mean diameter of largest active coil D2 75.0 mm
3 Shear modulus of elasticity G 80 GPa
4 Number of active coils na 4
5 Coil influence parameter ni 1.5
6 Spring wire diameter d 4.5 mm
7 Free length of the spring L0 500 mm

Table 2 Combination of non-linear damper parameters for model

Combination
Serial no. Property name Symbol Linear spring Non-linear spring
1 Piston diameter D 94.4 mm 180 mm
2 Slope of conical bore a 0.0 0.035
3 Initial clearance t0 10 mm 10 mm
4 Piston length L 100 mm 100 mm
5 Oil viscosity m 500 cP 720 cP

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1440 A H Kalyan Raj and C Padmanabhan

The expressions contained in equations (1) to (7)
are implemented in SIMULINK and simulation was
carried with the above-mentioned values. The real-
time sprung mass acceleration graph for the linear
system is shown in Fig. 5. Figure 6 shows the real-
time sprung mass acceleration graph for the non-
linear damper with linear spring. Thus, after 15 s
simulation, for a completely linear system, r.m.s.
sprung mass acceleration was 2.43 m/s2, r.m.s.
dynamic tyre deflection was 4.65 mm (the road-
holding parameter was 1.6), r.m.s. suspension def-
lection was 47.4 mm. For the non-linear damper
with the linear spring combination, the two metrics,
road-holding and suspension deflection, remained
nearly the same at 4.64 mm and 47.5 mm respec-
tively but the r.m.s. acceleration was 2.03 m/s2.
Figure 7 shows the real-time acceleration graph
for a completely non-linear system, conical spring
with the non-linear damper: the r.m.s. acceleration
for the completely non-linear system was 1.62 m/s2.

Fig. 5 Real-time sprung mass acceleration of the linear system

Fig. 6 Real-time sprung mass acceleration of the linear spring with non-linear damper

Fig. 7 Real-time sprung mass acceleration of the non-linear damper with conical spring

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 A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles 1441

As can be seen, the graph peaks at 4 m/s2 for the
completely linear system while the peaks are well
within 4 m/s2 for the non-linear damper with linear
spring combination. For the completely non-linear
system, the real-time peaks are close to 3 m/s2,
which is about a 25 per cent reduction from that of
the linear system at 4 m/s2. The metrics are the r.m.s.
values, however, as they provide good information
about the negative side of acceleration as well.
Hence, it can be seen that, on using a non-linear
damper, reduction of r.m.s. acceleration of the
chassis (sprung mass) was as high as 16 per cent
with the linear spring and 33 per cent with the non-
linear spring after 15 s simulation time.
4 EXPERIMENTS ON DAMPER
Various dimensions mentioned in Table 2 rep-
resent optimum values in achieving superior ride
comfort compared with a linear system. The aim of
the experiment is only to validate equation (1);
however, not necessarily with the same values. The
design was scaled to fit to the available test facility
and the values adopted for the experiment are as
follows: D 5 50 mm, L 5 50 mm, m 5 125 Pa s, a 5
0.087, t0 5 9.8 mm.
In Figs 8 and 9, the real-time data are averaged to
remove noise and plotted after making necessary
corrections for self-weight of the damper and the oil
seal friction values. The theoretical curve is also
shown and, as can be seen from the graphs, the
theoretical solution matches reasonably well with
the averaged real-time data. Given the variations of

The simulations were performed with two different

numerical schemes, the Runge–Kutta fourth-order
scheme and a Dormand–Prince scheme; both gave
results concurring within 0.1 per cent. This ensures
the consistency of the simulation results, but the
question remains regarding the validity of the
damper model represented by equation (1). An
experiment is carried out to characterize the non-
linear damper design constituting a cylindrical
piston translating in a conical bore. From this the
accuracy of the non-linear damper expression is
established.
The experiment essentially consists of imparting a
reciprocating motion to the piston while holding the
damper still. The motion imparted shall be in a
predefined fashion and, simultaneously, the force Fig. 8 Averaged force–displacement curve for 18 mm
resulting from having to ensure that predefined stroke at 2 cycles/s input
motion is to be measured.
These requirements are very well realized in the
MTS fatigue-testing machine intended to perform
materials testing and their property evaluation. The
machine has both displacement control mode as
well as force control mode. The data sought from the
experiment were the values of force F as a function
of stroke x, with the machine operated in displace-
ment control mode.
A triangular wave input of 10 cycles, at two
frequencies of 0.5 cycle/s and 2 cycles/s, with a
peak stroke of 30 mm and 18 mm (reduced owing
to limitations associated with the hydraulic power
pack) was given to the damper. This amounts to
stroke speeds of v 5 30 mm/s and 72 mm/s respec-
tively. A triangular input was chosen because of the
fact; this leads to a constant velocity v; hence the F
versus x graph is directly c versus x scaled by the Fig. 9 Averaged force–displacement curve for 30 mm
factor v. stroke at 0.5 cycles/s input

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1442 A H Kalyan Raj and C Padmanabhan
the real-time data, they are averaged using a runn-
ing average of the preceding 50 data points. Initial
hysteresis was observed in the experiments (only
for 1–2 cycles) but the plots show three half-cycles of
the data (only one-half of a cycle shown for clarity)
after settling down. The hysteresis effect is not
accounted for by the current model, but when the
response is to be calculated over a larger number of
cycles its effect can be considered to be small. Future
work will focus on including the hysteresis effects
(especially at higher stroke rates) in the damper
model.
The experimental and theoretical values showed
fair agreement over the entire region of the stroke
excluding those close to the end points of the stroke,
where the piston reverses its direction. As can be
seen from the average data (see Figs 8 and 9), the
variation seen from the experimental data was
higher by 2–5 mm before the stroke is reversed at
either end during the test cycles. This could be
attributed to the sudden change in fluid motion
direction due to reversal of piston motion and
accompanying fluid dynamics around the piston
resulting in larger discrepancy with theoretical data.
For other regions of the cycle, the mean of
averaged data follows closely the theoretical predic-
tion curve. The small cycle-to-cycle variations seen
could be attributed to the misalignment inaccuracies
in the assembly of the damper and consequent
leakage.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The act of decoupling the metrics to achieve super-
ior ride characteristics is related to certain desirable
non-linearities both in the damper and in the spring,
as shown in section 2. The conceptual passive
damper design is shown to yield reasonable im-
provements as seen by the 33 per cent reduction in
r.m.s. acceleration and improved ride comfort in
section 3. If the response of the system could depend
on the rate of road-input felt by the chassis, which
is facilitated by a non-linear damper design, this
damper alone in combination with a linear spring
can bring about a reduction of 16 per cent in r.m.s.
chassis acceleration for a smooth road case. Experi-
ments presented in section 4 help to validate the
damper theoretical model and two different displa-
cements and frequencies have been used for the
validation purpose. Thus, with a simple manufactur-
ing alteration of making the damper’s bore conical,
it has been demonstrated in this paper that good
improvement in ride quality is feasible.
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F Authors 2009
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JAUTO1112
 A new passive non-linear damper for automobiles 1443

APPENDIX na number of active coils

ni coil influence parameter
Notation P force in spring
a slope of conical contour t0 clearance between piston head and
c suspension damping rate the bore
ct tyre damping v vehicle speed
d spring wire diameter v0 velocity of the piston
D piston head diameter x stroke or displacement
D1 mean diameter of smallest active coil x0(t) road profile (displacement input to
D2 mean diameter of smallest active coil the models)
G shear modulus of elasticity
k linear suspension rate a road roughness parameter
kt tyre stiffness g(t) white noise
L piston head length m oil viscosity
L0 free length of the spring

JAUTO1112 Proc. IMechE Vol. 223 Part D: J. Automobile Engineering

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