Performance benefits in passive vehicle suspensions employing inerters

Abstract

A new ideal mechanical one-port network element 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 suspension struts, 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 strut. A study of a full-car model is also undertaken where performance improvements are also shown in comparison to conventional passive suspension struts. A prototype inerter has been built and tested. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate a characteristic phase advance property which cannot be achieved with conventional passive struts consisting of springs and dampers only.

Passive suspensions incorporating inerters for railway vehicles

“…Applications of the method to vehicle suspension [2,3], control of motorcycle steering instabilities [4,5], vibration absorption [1] and building suspension control [6] have been identified. The inerter has been successfully deployed in Formula One racing since 2005 [7].…”

Application of the Pareto-optimal approach for selecting dynamic characteristics of seat suspension systems

“…The inerter presented in the paper [4] is a rack-and-gear mechanism with a flywheel to reduce inertial forces caused by vibrations. The paper [5] shows promising benefits in vibration attenuation, however, the innovative inerter is an additional device which has to be included in vehicle suspension systems.…”

Design and analysis of a shock absorber with variable moment of inertia for passive vehicle suspensions

“…However, a mass has only one terminal which makes it difficult to be incorporated into a suspension. In order to use a mass to achieve the damping-like effect, a two-terminal mass (TTM) has to be designed [7][8][9]. Details about the two-terminal and two-terminal mass concepts and its potential applications are provided in the literature [10].…”