Development Of Shape Memory Alloy Based Quarter Car Suspension System

Abstract

It is well-known that suspension systems plays a major role in automotive technology. Most of the today’s vehicle applies a passive suspension systems consisting of a spring and damper. The design of automotive suspension have been a compromise between passenger comfort, suspension travel and road holding ability. This work aims in reducing the suspension travel alone by developing a quarter car model suspension for a passenger car to improve its performance by introducing shape memory alloy spring (Nitinol) instead of traditional spring. A two way shape memory alloy spring possesses two different stiffness in its two different phases (martensite and austenite). In this study, road profile is considered as a simple harmonic profile and vibration analysis of aminiature quarter car model suspension system has been carried out experimentally. Using theoretical method, the displacement of the sprung mass is also studied and discussed. The vibration analysis have been carried out for the suspension system at both phases of the spring and the results gives a significant improvement in reducing the displacement of sprung mass for various excitation frequencies.