Design, simulation and testing of an active seat suspension for commercial vehicles

Abstract

Commercial vehicles must be driven often through a very uneven terrain. In such case, the driver is exposed to strong vibrations, which act from the vehicle body through the seat suspension to him. In order to reduce these vibrations the seat suspensions are usually equipped with spring-damper systems. However, these passive systems reach their physical limits especially at low-frequency vibrations. A significant improvement of the seating comfort can be achieved under such excitation conditions only with an active seat suspension. In this work a novel fully active seat suspension on the basis of electrorheological fluids is introduced. In addition, the theoretical bases for the modeling of the active electrorheological seat suspension are presented. Afterwards the simulation results are compared with the measurement results under real operating conditions. The presentation of these results using the widely used SEAT values (Seat Effective Amplitude Transmissibility) demonstrates the potential of the developed electrorheological system for the active reduction of vibration exposure of the driver and allows its objective evaluation.