Investigation on the vibration performance of an inertial suspension system based on power flow method

To explore the dynamic mechanism of inertial suspension system in terms of the energy and power, the four-terminal parameter vibration analysis method was employed in this study. The expressions for force and velocity vectors at the connection points between different substructures were derived, and a power flow model for a two degree-of-freedom suspension system was established. Addressing the generation mechanism, transmission characteristics and reception mechanism of vibration energy, a comprehensive calculation method for input power of the suspension, power transmission between the tire and suspension, as well as energy reception by the vehicle body were provided. The results indicated that the influence of damping and inerter on energy transfer is closely related to the excitation frequency. In the low-frequency range, an optimal damping-inerter combination can be produced to minimize the energy received by the vehicle body. Conversely, in the high-frequency range, smaller damping and inerter will result in less energy reception by the vehicle body. Consequently, a fluid inerter solution with adaptive frequency is proposed to achieve a combination of high damping-inerter in low frequency and low damping-inerter in high frequency. The corresponding dynamic simulation shows that the root mean square value of vehicle body acceleration decreases by 43.6% under low frequency excitation, that is, the ride comfort is significantly improved.