Affiliations: Politecnico di Bari, Dipartimento di Ingegneria
Meccanica e Gestionale, Bari, Italy | LMS International nv, Leuven, Belgium
Note: [] Corresponding author: L. Soria, Politecnico di Bari,
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale, V.le Japigia, 182, 70126,
Bari, Italy. E-mail: soria@poliba.it
Abstract: Comfort, road holding and safety of passenger cars are mainly
influenced by an appropriate design of suspension systems. Improvements of the
dynamic behaviour can be achieved by implementing semi-active or active
suspension systems. In these cases, the correct design of a well-performing
suspension control strategy is of fundamental importance to obtain satisfying
results. Operational Modal Analysis allows the experimental structural
identification in those that are the real operating conditions: Moving from
output-only data, leading to modal models linearised around the more
interesting working points and, in the case of controlled systems, providing
the needed information for the optimal design and verification of the
controller performance. All these characters are needed for the experimental
assessment of vehicle suspension systems. In the paper two suspension
architectures are considered equipping the same car type. The former is a
semi-active commercial system, the latter a novel prototypic active system. For
the assessment of suspension performance, two different kinds of tests have
been considered, proving ground tests on different road profiles and laboratory
four poster rig tests. By OMA-processing the signals acquired in the different
testing conditions and by comparing the results, it is shown how this tool can
be effectively utilised to verify the operation and the performance of those
systems, by only carrying out a simple, cost-effective road test.
Keywords: Operational Modal Analysis, vehicle suspension systems, semi-active and active dampers
