Investigation of Vertical Stiffness of the Front Axle Air Springs for Passenger Bus by Experimental and Finite Element Analysis

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Finite element analysis, cord-rubber composites, vertical stiffness, hyper-elastic materials, ride comfort

Investigation of Vertical Stiffness of the Front Axle Air Springs for Passenger Bus by Experimental and Finite Element Analysis

Air Springs have been used for years, especially in commercial vehicles and buses, to maintain the vehicle's height regardless of the load and increase vehicle comfort. It is complex to experimentally determine the changes (reaction force, extension, strain) caused by loading alone to fully interpret the damping ability of air springs under operating conditions. The air springs are exposed to tension and force in different directions as they are made of a rubber composite structure. Therefore, discussing the damping properties of air springs with only the experimental method is difficult. The study aims to obtain information about the damping behavior of the bellows produced from composite materials, such as bellows under static loads, using both experimental and finite element analysis models. The finite element model of the air springs was obtained by modeling the three parts that provide its integrity. The material definitions required for the composite structure were determined by experimental methods and entered into the FEA program. No material is defined for rigid body members. The results of unidirectional and multidirectional tensile tests performed in a laboratory environment were used for material properties. The characteristics of the air were also entered into the analysis software with the information taken from the literature. The analyzes were carried out in three steps inflating the bellows to the specified pressure values, vertical movement, and compression to the specified displacement value. In this study, it was seen that the cord fabrics in rubber composite structures were affected more by excessive tension than rubber material, and the deviation of the static stiffness value was approximately 5% between the experimental study and the analysis studies. Thanks to FEA studies, it has been determined that more results can be obtained regarding values such as regional stress, force, and displacement in the bellows.

Keywords:

Finite element analysis, cord-rubber composites, vertical stiffness, hyper-elastic materials, ride comfort,

PDF

___

[1] S. Oman, M. Fajdiga, M. Nagode, “Estimation of air-spring life based on accelerated experiments,” Materials and Design, vol. 31, no. 8, pp. 3859–3868, 2010.
[2] V. Eskandary, V. Khajepour, V. Wong, “Analysis and optimization of air suspension system with independent height and stiffness tuning,” International Journal of Automotive Technology, vol. 17, pp. 807-816, 2016.
[3] H. Zhu, J Yang, Y Zhang, X. A. Feng, “A novel air spring dynamic model with pneumatic thermodynamics, effective friction and viscoelastic damping,” Journal of Sound and Vibration, vol. 408, pp. 87-104, 2017.
[4] M. W. Holtz, J. L. Nierkerk, “Modelling and design of a novel air spring for a suspension seat,” Journal of Sound and Vibration, vol. 329, no. 21, pp. 4354-4366, 2010.
[5] S. Oman, M. Nagode, M. Fajdiga, “The material characterization of the air spring bellow sealing layer,” Materials and Design, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 1141-1150, 2009.
[6] S. Lee, “Development and analysis of an air spring model,” International Journal of Automotive Technology, vol. 11, pp. 471-479, 2010.
[7] J. Ye, H. Huang, C. He, G. Liu, “Analysis of Vertical Stiffness of Air Spring Based on Finite Element Method,” in MATEC Web of Conferences, vol.153, no. 06006, 2018. [8] S. Razdan, P. J. Awasare, S. Y. Bhave, “Active Vibration Control using Air Spring,” Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India): Series C, vol. 100, no. 1, pp. 1–12, 2018.
[9] G. Quaglia, A. Guala, “Evaluation and Validation of an Air Spring Analytical Model,” International Journal of Fluid Power, vol. 4, pp. 43-54, 2003.
[10] M. Ber, “A Three–Dimensional Airspring Model with Friction and Orifice Damping,” International Journal of Vehicle Mechanics and Mobility, vol. 33, pp. 528-539, 1999.
[11] T. Mankovits, T. Szabo, “Finite element analysis of rubber bumper used in air spring,” Journal of Procedia Engineering, vol. 48, pp. 388-395, 2012.
[12] B. Agnew, “A Note on the Design of Air Springs,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, vol. 205, no. 3, pp. 207-209, 1991.
[13] S. Oman, M. Nagode, “On the influence of the cord angle on air-spring fatigue life,” Engineering Failure Analysis, vol. 27, pp. 61-73, 2013.
[14] M. Jamshidi, F. Afshar, B. Shamayeli, “Evaluation of cord/rubber adhesion by a new fatigue test method,” Journal of Applied polymer Science, vol.101, no.4, pp. 2488-2494, 2006.
[15] W. V. Mars, A. Fatemi, “Literature survey on fatigue analysis approaches for rubber,” International Journal of Fatigue, vol. 24, no. 9, pp. 949–961, 2002.
[16] M. Shahzada, A. Kamranb, MZ. Siddiqui, M. Farhan, “Mechanical Characterization and FE Modelling of a Hyperelastic Material,” Journal of Material Research, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 918-924, 2015.
[17] B. Agnew, “A Comparison of Approximate Forms of Air Spring Shells,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, vol. 208, no. 3, pp. 207-210, 1994.
[18] Z. Li, L. Ju, H. Jiang, X. Xu, M. Li, “Experimental and simulation study on the vibration isolation and torsion elimination performances of interconnected air suspensions, “Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, vol. 230, no. 5, pp. 679-691, 2016. [19] H. Fu, Z. Hua, L. Zou, Y. Wang, J. Ye, “Combined stiffness characteristic of metal rubber material under vibration loads,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, vol. 233, no. 17, pp. 6076-6088, 2019.
[20] X. Q. Sun, L. Chen, S. H. Wang, X. Xu, “Vehicle height control of electronic air suspension system based on mixed logical dynamical modeling,” Science China Technological Sciences, vol. 58, pp. 1894-1904, 2015.
[21] S. Oman, M. Nagode, “The influence of piston shape on air-spring fatigue life,” Fatigue&Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures, vol.41, no. 5, pp. 1019-1031, 2017.
[22] P. K. Wong, Z. Xie, J. Zhao, T. Xu, F. He, “Analysis of automotive rolling lobe air spring under alternative factors with finite element model,” Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 28, no. 12, pp. 5069-5081, 2014.
[23] B. Sarıoğlu, A. Durmuş, “Manufacture and Testing of Air Springs Used in Railway Vehicles,” Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, vol.44, pp. 7967–7977, 2019.
[24] J. J. Chen, Z. H. Yin, S. Rakheja, J. H. He, K.H. Guo, “Theoretical modelling and experimental analysis of the vertical stiffness of a convoluted air spring including the effect of the stiffness of the bellows,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, vol.232, no. 4, pp. 547-561, 2018.
[25] I. Okorn, M. Fajdiga, M. Nagode, “Analysis of a test rig drive for air springs,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, vol.224, no.1, pp. 243-251, 2010.
[26] D. Qu, X. Liu, G. Liu, T. He, “Vibration isolation characteristics and control strategy of parallel air spring system for transportation under abnormal road and eccentric load conditions,”Measurement and Control, vol. 54, no. 3-4, pp. 252-268, 2021.
[27] H. Ding, A. Khajepour, Y. Huang, “A novel tripped rollover prevention system for commercial trucks with air suspensions at low speeds, “Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, vol. 232, no. 11, pp. 1516-1527, 2018.
[28] H. Darijani, R. Naghdabadi, M. H. Kargarnovin, “Hyperelastic materials modelling using a strain measure consistent with the strain energy postulates,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, vol. 224, no. 3, pp. 591-602, 2010.
[29] W. Huai, G. RuHai, L. Y. Li, “The influence of meshing density on automobile crashing simulation and the efficiency of calculation,” Journal of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, vol.23, no. 4, pp. 29-33, 2002.
[30] S. Wenku, J. Wan, H. Ying, Y. Weimin, Y. Hao, L. Zubin, “Finite element analysis of an air spring concerning initial pressure and parameters of cord fabric layer,” in Asia-Pacific Conference on Computational Intelligence and Industrial Applications (PACIIA), Wuhan, China, 2009, pp. 496-499.
[31] P. J. Mago, S. A. Sherif, “Formulations of thermodynamic properties of supersaturated moist air,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, vol. 217, no. 6, pp. 705-718, 2003.
[32] F. Chang, Z. H. Lu, “Dynamic model of an air spring and integration into a vehicle dynamics model,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, vol. 222, no.10, pp. 1813-1825, 2008.
[33] L. Fang, Y. Wang, “Study on the stiffness property of a variable stiffness joint using a leaf spring,”Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, vol. 233, no. 3, pp. 1021-1031, 2019.
[34] J. J. Chen, Z. H.Yin, S. Rakheja, J. H. He, K. H. Guo, “Theoretical modelling and experimental analysis of the vertical stiffness of a convoluted air spring including the effect of the stiffness of the bellows,”Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, vol. 232, no. 4, pp. 547-561, 2018.
[35] H. W. Lee, S. H. Kim, H. Huh, J. Y. Kim, S. G. Jeong, “Finite Element Analysis of Diaphragm-type Air Springs with Fiber-reinforced Rubber Composites, ”Journal of Composite Materials, vol. 37, no. 14, pp.1261-1274, 2003.
[36] G. Taiping, H. Lin, Z. Yinglong, “Composite finite element approach for dynamic stiffness calculation of bellows type air spring,” Journal of Vibration and Shock, vol. 29, no.8, pp. 221-223, 2010.