Hydro-pneumatic suspension is widely used in heavy vehicles due to its nonlinear characteristics of stiffness and damping. However, the conventional passive hydro-pneumatic suspension can ’ t adjust parameters according to the complicated road environment of heavy vehicles to fulfill the requirements of the vehicle ride comfort. In this paper, a semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension system based on the electro-hydraulic proportional valve control is proposed, and fuzzy control is used as the control strategy to adjust the damping force of the semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension. A 1/4 semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension model is established, which is co-si mulated with AMESim and MATLAB/Simulink. The co-simulation results show that the semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension system can significantly reduce vibration of the vehicle body, and improve the suspension performance comparing with passive hydro-pneumatic suspension.
The hydro-pneumatic suspension is a special suspension system, which has a large carrying capacity, variable stiffness and variable damping properties compared with the conventional passive suspension [
This article is based on the hydro-pneumatic suspension of heavy vehicles and build the 1/4 hydro-pneumatic suspension dynamic model. Then, according to the motion state of the suspension, the electro-hydraulic proportional valve is controlled by the fuzzy control method to achieve the adjustment of the hydro-pneumatic spring damping force, so as to improve the ride comfort under different road conditions. The hydraulic servo system is co-simulated with AMESim and MATLAB. The co-simulation results show that the vehicle acceleration is reduced obviously and the ride comfort characteristics are improved comparing with passive hydro-pneumatic suspension.
The structure of a heavy vehicle semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension system is shown in
the passive pneumatic suspension system, and the control section is outside the dashed frame. The semi-active hydro pneumatic suspension uses electro-hydraulic proportional valve to replace the original suspension of the fixed orifice, and the damping force of the hydro pneumatic suspension system is changed by adjusting the spool displacement of the electro-hydraulic proportional valve. In
In this paper, the working principle of semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension is as follows: using the suspension working space and the acceleration of the sprung mass as feedback signal, and established in accordance with the deviation of the negative feedback controller, and then use the fuzzy algorithm regulating the valve opening of electro-hydraulic proportional to achieve a controllable hydro-pneumatic spring damping force. The electro-hydraulic proportional valve is connected directly to the actuator that is the cylinder of hydro-pneumatic spring.
In this paper, the hydro-pneumatic spring of heavy vehicles is mainly composed of accumulator and hydraulic cylinder, the hydraulic cylinder is equipped with damping hole and check valve, the physical model is shown in
Meanwhile, the compression stroke is different from the damping force of the recovery stroke because of the check valve.
When the piston rod is subjected to the action of the displacement excitation signal, the instantaneous pressure of the gas in the accumulator is obtained by the gas adiabatic equation:
P g V g n = P g 0 V g 0 n (1)
where: Pg0, Vg0 are the gas pressure and the volume of the accumulator at the equilibrium position, Pg, Vg are instantaneous gas pressure and volume of the accumulator, n is the gas variable index.
Assuming that the displacement of the compression stroke of the hydro-pneu- matic spring is positive, the instantaneous gas volume of the accumulator can be expressed as:
V g = V g 0 − A c z (2)
where: Ac is the effective area of the piston, z is the displacement of the hydro- pneumatic spring.
In the hydro-pneumatic spring system, the throttle orifice (damping hole and check valve) is the main structure of the damping force. According to the theory of thin-walled aperture [
Δ P damper = 1 2 ρ [ A c z ˙ / C d { S 1 + S 2 [ 1 + sign ( z ˙ ) ] / 2 } ] 2 sign ( z ˙ ) (3)
where: ρ is fluid density, Cd is discharge coefficient, S1 is the area of the orifice, S2 is the area of the check valve, z ˙ is the speed of the excitation signal.
The force of the hydro-pneumatic suspension system consists of three parts: damping force, elastic force and friction force. Normally, the lubrication between the piston and the cylinder wall is good, so the friction force can be ignored. The force of piston can be expressed as follows:
F = P c A c (4)
where: Pc is the pressure of hydraulic cylinder, F is the force of the piston rod, and P c = P g + Δ P damper .
In order to verify the correctness of the above hydro-pneumatic spring model, the performance of the hydro-pneumatic spring is tested and compared with the simulation results. The bench test is shown in
The bench test includes two parts: static test and dynamic test. Static test is the relationship between F and z in the static state of the hydro-pneumatic spring under a certain initial inflation pressure. Dynamic test is the use of sinusoidal excitation signal to measure the relationship between the F and z, which is applied to the piston rod.
The dynamic model of semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension is shown in
{ m b z ¨ b = F m w z ¨ w = − F + k t ( z r − z w ) + c t ( z ˙ r − z ˙ w ) F = d ( z ˙ b − z ˙ w ) + k 2 ( z b − z w ) (5)
where: d is the variable damping of the hydro-pneumatic suspension system, k2 is the variable stiffness of the hydro-pneumatic suspension system.
The state vector is z, z = [ z b z b − z w ż b ż w ] T , the system output is Y, Y = [ z b z b − z w k t ( z r − z w ) ] T , the system input is the road roughness excitation, the state space expression of the suspension system is made by the motion differential equation:
{ Z ˙ = A Z + B U Y = C Z + D U (6)
where: A is the system matrix, B is the input (control) matrix, C is the output matrix, D is a direct transfer matrix.
A = ( 0 0 1 0 0 0 − 1 1 − k t m w k 2 m w − d m w d m w 0 − k 2 m b d m b d m w ) ,
B = ( 0 0 k t m w 0 ) ,
C = ( 0 − k 2 m 2 d m 2 − d m 2 0 1 0 0 k t 0 0 0 ) ,
D = ( 0 0 − k w )
Fuzzy control does not require a precise mathematical model, as long as the input and output data based on the actual system, refer to the operation experience and expert experience, and then the system can be real-time control. In this paper, fuzzy control is shown in
In
Considering the fuzzy controller with two inputs and one output, if the output of the hydro pneumatic suspension system is Y, Y = [ z b z b − z w ] T . At the same time, the state equation of the system is not changed, and the output equation of the system is unchanged. C and D is still the output and direct transfer matrix.
At this time, C = ( 0 − k 2 m b d m b − d m b 0 1 0 0 ) , D = ( 0 0 ) .
In the fuzzy controller of the semi-active suspension, e and ec are both [−6, 6], the valve spool displacement of the domain are [0, 10]. Among them, two input e, ec and one output are defined as seven fuzzy subsets of PB PM PS Z NS NM NB. The membership function of the output variable is the same as the input error and error rate of change, both with a triangular membership function.
According to the amount of fuzzy sets and membership functions, fuzzy rule table of fuzzy output variables can be deduced by MAX-MIN fuzzy inference after fuzzification. The fuzzy control rules are established by the empirical induction method, and the self-tuning fuzzy control rules of the output displacement are shown in
The fuzzy output is obtained by the fuzzy rules in
Use the co-simulation of MATLAB/Simulink and AMESim to verify the effectiveness of the control algorithm used in this paper. Step signal and a filtered white noise are used as the road input model. Filter white noise to the road surface model [
| e ec | NB | NM | NS | Z | PS | PM | PB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NB | PB | PB | PM | PM | PS | PS | Z |
| NM | PB | PB | PM | PM | PS | Z | Z |
| NS | PM | PM | PM | PS | Z | NS | NM |
| Z | PM | PS | PS | Z | NS | NM | NM |
| PS | PS | PS | Z | NS | NS | NM | NM |
| PM | Z | Z | NS | NM | NM | NM | NB |
| PB | Z | NS | NS | NM | NM | NB | NB |
q ˙ = − 2 π f 0 q + 2 π G 0 u w ( t ) (7)
where: G0 is the road roughness coefficient, u is the vehicle speed, f0 is the lower cut-off frequency, w(t) is the Gauss white noise with the expected value of zero. The simulation input parameters of the heavy vehicle are shown in
The semi-active suspension and passive suspension of hydro-pneumatic are simulated and analyzed.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Sprung mass mb | 4900 (kg) |
| Unsprung mass mw | 724 (kg) |
| Tyre stiffness kt | 2.65e6 (kN/m) |
| Road roughness coefficient G0 | 16 × 10−6 (m3/cycle) |
| Lower cut-off frequency f0 | 0.1 (Hz) |
| Vehicle speed u | 16.7 (m/s) |
As can be seen from Figures 9-12, the simulation results for the sprung mass of semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension is better than that of passive suspension. After calculation, compare the sprung mass acceleration RMS value of semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension with passive suspension under the random road excitation, which is reduced from 0.42 m/s2 to 0.32 m/s2. The peak acceleration of the vehicle body with semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension is obviously decreased; the sprung mass peak acceleration of the semi-active suspension is reduced by 1 m/s2 under the step road excitation.
In this paper, the nonlinear model of the hydro-pneumatic suspension of the heavy vehicle has been established, which was based on the modeling and verification. The electro-hydraulic proportional valve was controlled by fuzzy method so that the damping force of the hydro-pneumatic suspension was adjusted; the control effect of the semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension was studied by the co-simulation of MATLAB/Simulink and AMESim. The simulation results showed that the sprung mass acceleration RMS value of the semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension relative to the passive hydro pneumatic suspension was reduced about 24% under the random road excitation; the peak acceleration of the semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension is obviously decreased under the step excitation. The semi-active hydro-pneumatic suspension designed in this paper can effectively improve the ride comfort of the vehicle and improve the comfort of the vehicle.
Yue, W.C., Li, S.C. and Zou, X.J. (2017) Investigation of Semi-Active Hydro-Pneumatic Suspension for a Heavy Vehicle Based on Electro-Hydraulic Proportional Valve. World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 5, 696-706. https://doi.org/10.4236/wjet.2017.54058