Effect of damping coefficient on power generated & comfort index in energy regenerative damper for automobile suspension system

In this paper performance of Electro-Magnetic Damper (EMD) for a car suspension system is analyzed. A 2-D model of a vehicle developed in SimMechanics® was initially used to determine the amount of power wasted by conventional viscous dampers. On the basis of the output of numerical simulations, i.e. force developed and power wasted by viscous dampers, specifications for an ElectroMagnetic damper (EMD) were driven. The 2D model of the vehicle was then interfaced with models of EMDs. This kind of device allows not only to recover energy while damping the relative motion between carbody and unsuspended masses, but also to tune the damping coefficient to alter the response of the vehicle in terms of heave and pitch dynamics. Tuning of EMDs was eventually changed to put into evidence the trade-off between the power generated & comfort levels.