Ride Comfort Effects of Inerter Implementation at Heavy Vehicle Suspension Seat

Abstract

The benefits of the relative new passive vibration isolation device, known as an Inerter or J-Damper, have been examined in terms of ride comfort for heavy commercial vehicle seat and cabin suspensions. The investigations were conducted using the equations of motion for a 5-axle tractor-trailer combination with 14 degrees of freedom associated with such a vehicle. Inerter devices were applied in various combinations in the cabin and seat suspensions, and each combination was realized by adding increasing inertance to spring and damper pairs corresponding to different natural frequencies and damping ratios. Weighted RMS acceleration values and RMS displacements were calculated in the frequency domain for each parameter set, and the changes obtained with increasing inertance were illustrated graphically. Weighted RMS accelerations were calculated using methods defined by the ISO-2631:1997 standard. Road surface irregularities were defined according to the ISO-8608:2016 standard. The results indicated that within the selected range, an increase in inertance led to a decrease in weighted accelerations and displacements. This suggests that the implementation of inerter devices in the seat and cabin suspensions of heavy commercial vehicles can improve ride comfort.