ABSTRACT
The concept of suspension systems is treated for a broad array of vehicles including trains, airplanes, and off-road vehicles. The vehicle suspension has many important functions: control of the attitude of the vehicle body with respect to the road surface; and control of the attitude of the wheels with respect to both the road surface and the vehicle body. The lexicon commonly used in vehicle dynamics “semi-active” control implies that the control actuator requires very little power. The fundamental concepts of semi-active suspension and semi-active vibration control go back to Karnopp’s work. Some conceptual models of dampers and semi-active dampers exist in the literature as well as the physical models. Under the support of the Copernicus Semi-Active Damping of Truck Suspension and Its Influence on Driver and Road Loads project, a new advanced methodology for the design of semi-active truck suspensions was developed.
