Shock Absorber Modeling and Simulation Based on Modelica

Yuming Hou, Lingyang Li, Ping He, Yunqing Zhang, Liping Chen
CAD Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
zhangyq@[Link]

Abstract combined with a dynamic modeling technique.

Which used to study the flow and performance of
The purpose of shock absorbers are to dissipate im- automotive hydraulic dampers / shock absorbers.
pact energy, and control tire force variation, the Simms [3] established a non-linear hysteretic physi-
shock absorber has great influence on both ride and cal shock absorber model, and the processes utilized
handling performance of vehicles, and a great many to identify the constituent parameters, and the model
previous researches have been done on modeling and is validated by comparing simulated results to expe-
simulation of the shock absorber. In this paper, a de- rimental data for a test damper, for three discrete
tailed model of shock absorber is established, which frequencies of sinusoidal excitation of 1, 3 and 12 Hz.
contains rebound chamber, compression chamber, Talbott [4] presented a mathmatical model of a gas-
piston valve assembly, base valve assembly and so charged mono-tube racing damper. The model in-
on. Those models are built using modelica language, cludes bleed orifice, piston leakage, and shim stack
modelica is a language for modeling of physical sys- flows, and also includes models of the floating piston
tems, designed to support effective library develop- and the stiffness characteristics of the shim stacks.
ment and model exchange. It is a modern language Chavan [5] study the damper lag and hysteresis
built on a causal modeling with mathematical equa- which are the important parameters affecting the dy-
tions and object-oriented constructs to facilitate reuse namic response of the hydraulic shock absorbers, and
of modeling knowledge. the response of the suspension unit to road excitation
strongly influences motorcycle ride comfort.
Keywords: shock absorber; ride; handling; Modeli-
ca Modelica is a freely available, object-oriented lan-
guage for modeling of large, complex, and heteroge-
neous physical systems. It is suited for multi-domain
1 Introduction modeling, for example, mechatronic models in robot-
ics, automotive and aerospace applications involving
Shock absorber is widely used on vehicle. The pur- mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and control subsys-
poses of the shock absorber are to dissipate the ener- tems, process oriented applications and generation
gy accumulated by the suspension spring displace- and distribution of electric power. Models in Mod-
ment. The damping of the shock absorber for com- elica are mathematically described by differential,
pression motion is usually less than that of rebound algebraic and discrete equations. No particular varia-
motion, in such a case, less force is transmitted to the ble needs to be solved for manually. A Modelica tool
vehicle when crossing a bump. By comparison, the will have enough information to decide that automat-
shock absorber provides more damping force for re- ically. Modelica is designed such that available, spe-
bound motion in order to dissipate energy stored in cialized algorithms can be utilized to enable efficient
the suspension system quickly [1]. When the shock handling of large models having more than one hun-
absorber is operated, hydraulic oil is passed between dred thousand equations. Modelica is suited and used
chambers via a system of hydraulic valves, and the for hardware-in-the-loop simulations and for embed-
damping effect is accomplished by the resistance of ded control systems.
the oil when flowing through the valves. For the im-
portance of the shock absorber on vehicle ride and
handling performance, it is necessary to establish an 2 Shock Absorber Modeling
accurate mathematical model of shock absorber, and
there is a great wealth of literatures devoted to the The shock absorber is one of the most important
modeling and simulation of the shock absorber. Herr elements in a vehicle suspension system. For analyz-
[2] presented a computational fluid dynamics method ing the influence of the uncertain parameters on the
response of the shock absorber, a detailed analytical
model of the shock absorber is necessary. The first By-pass Valve
Spring Check Valve Check Valve
step of establishing the analytical model is to under- Spring Disc

stand the physics of the shock absorber. Fig. 1 shows By-pass Valve
Disc
the schematic of the shock absorber. The shock ab-
sorber mainly consists of rebound chamber, com-
pression chamber, reserve chamber, piston valve as- Rebound Valve
Disc
sembly and base valve assembly. When the piston Compression
Valve Disc
valve assembly moves up and down, pressure diffe- Rebound Valve
Spring
rential is generated between the rebound chamber
(a) (b)
and the compression chamber, also there is pressure
differential between the compression chamber and Fig. 2 Fluid paths through the piston valve and
the reserve chamber. The pressure differential forces base valve during the compression stoke
the fluid to flow through the valves and orifices. The By-pass Valve
Spring Check Valve Check Valve
damping force during the compression and rebound Spring Disc

stoke are produced on account of the resistance of- By-pass Valve

Disc
fered by the fluid in flowing through the valves and
orifices [6].
Rebound Valve
Disc
Piston Rod
Rebound Valve Compression
Spring Valve Disc
Rebound
Chamber
(a) (b)
Reserve
Chamber Fig. 3 Fluid path through the piston valve and base
Piston Valve
Assembly
valve during the rebound stoke
Compression
During the rebound, fluid in the rebound chamber
Chamber was forced flowing to the compression chamber, the
Base Valve
Assembly
missing oil equivalent to the rod volume extracted
from the rebound chamber is complemented from the
reserve chamber to the compression chamber, and
Fig. 1 The Schematic of the shock absorber the flow paths are shown in Fig. 3.
During the compression, the piston rod moves down In Fig. 3(a), the by-pass valve is closed, when the
and pushes the fluid in the compression chamber pressure differential between the rebound chamber
flowing to the rebound chamber and reserve chamber. and the compression chamber is lower than the prel-
The detailed structures of the piston valve assembly oad of the rebound valve spring, the rebound valve is
and the base valve assembly are given in Fig. 2, the also closed, but the fluid will pass through the orific-
fluid paths during the compression are also shown in es on the disc. And when the pressure differential
the figure. reaches the preload, the rebound valve disc will be
As shown in Fig. 2(a), the by-pass valve and rebound opened. As depicted in Fig. 3(b), the compression
valve are essential non-return valves, during the valve is closed, and the fluid will flow through the
compression, the rebound valve disc is closed, but orifices on the disc from reserve chamber to com-
there are four orifices on the rebound valve disc al- pression chamber. And the check valve will be
low the fluid flow through, cross the holes of piston opened when the pressure differential between the
body and by-pass valve disc to the rebound chamber. reserve chamber and the compression chamber
The by-pass valve disc opens only if the pressure reaches the preload of the check valve spring.
differential between the compression chamber and From discussed above, an equivalent scheme of the
the rebound chamber reaches the preload of the by- shock absorber is built in Fig. 4.
pass valve spring. In Fig. 2(b), the check valve is
closed, and before the pressure differential between
the compression chamber and reserve chamber
reaches the preload of the compression valve disc,
the compression valve will be closed. But the fluid
can still pass through the four orifices on the com-
pression valve disc. When the pressure differential
exceeds the preload, the compression valve will be
opened.
 Rebound chamber

Orifices on the by-pass

valve disc
By-pass valve
Circular holes on the
piston body

Rectangular holes on
Rebound valve
the piston body

Orifices on the
Compression chamber rebound valve disc

Orifices on the check

valve disc
Check valve
Circular holes on the
base body

Rectangular holes on Compression valve Fig. 6 The modelica code of the check valve
the base body

Orifices on the

Reserve chamber
compression valve disc
The mathematical model of the compression valve is
Fig. 4 The equivalent scheme of the shock absor- presented as below:
ber 0 if ∆pc ≤ ∆pc 0
For a generic orifice or a hole, the flow rate Q can 
Qc =  2∆pc (3)
be expressed as a function of the pressure drop ∆p : Clbcδ ρ
if ∆pc > ∆pc 0

2∆p ∆pc
Q = CA δ
(1) = [(9r14 + 8r13r2 − 18r12 r22 + r24 ) / 6 − 4r13r2 ln(r1 / r2 )] (4)
ρ Ec h3
Where, C is the flow coefficient, A denotes the Where, Qc is the flow rate through the compression
flow area of the orifice, ρ is the density of the oil. valve, ∆pc is the pressure drop, lbc denotes the hy-
The modelica code of the orifice is given in Fig. 5. draulic perimeter of the compression valve disc, δ
represents the deflection of the disc, Ec is the elastic
modulus of the disc, h is the thickness of the disc.
r1 and r2 are the outer and inner contact radius be-
tween the disc and the compression valve body. Fig.
7 shows the modelica code of the compression valve.

Fig. 5 The modelica code of the orifice

For a check valve with spring preload, the formula

given below describes the relation between the flow
rate Qv and pressure drop ∆pv :
0 if ∆pv ≤ ∆p0
 (2)
Qv =  (∆pv − ∆p0 ) Adisc 2∆pv
Clb if ∆pv > ∆p0
 ks ρ
Where, ∆p0 is the preload of the spring, k s denotes
the stiffness of the spring, lb represents hydraulic Fig. 7 The modelica code of the compression valve
perimeter of the valve disc. Adisc is the area which
oil pressure acts on the valve disc. The modelica 3 Simulation
code of the check valve is shown in Fig. 6.
A shock absorber simulation model is established
using MWorks/Modelica software, as shown in Fig.
8, the model contains the rebound valve, by-pass
valve, check valve, compression valve, rebound the Modelica language is available for modeling
chamber, compression chamber, reserve chamber, multi-domain physical system.
the mass of the piston and so on. The input of the
simulation model is a sine displacement to the piston
rod. And Fig. 9 shows the response of the damping Acknowledgement
force vs the velocity of the piston. Fig. 10 shows that the
response of the damping force vs the displacement of the This work was supported by the National High-Tech
piston R&D Program, China (No. 2009AA044501).

References
[1] S. Subramanian, R. Surampudi and K. R.
Thomson. “Development of a Nonlinear
Shock Absorber Model for Low-Frequency
NVH Applications,” SAE paper 2003-01-
0860.
[2] F. Herr, T. Mallin, J. Lane and S. Roth. “A
Shock Absorber Model Using CFD Analysis
Fig. 8 The simulation model of the shock absorber and Easy5,” SAE paper 1999-01-1322.
[3] A. Simms and D. Crolla. “The Influence of
Damper Properties on Vehicle Dynamic Be-
haviour,” SAE paper 2002-01-0319.
[4] M. S. Talbott and J. Starkey. “An Experi-
mentally Validated Physical Model of a
High-Performance Mono-Tube Damper,”
SAE paper 2002-01-3337.
[5] C. B. Chavan, M. K. Venkata, R. Babu and R.
Bharat. “Experimental Study on Effect of
Damper Lag on Motorcycle Ride Comfort,”
Fig. 9 Response of the damping force vs the veloc-
SAE paper 2006-32-0096.
ity of the piston
[6] L. C. Andreotti and S. N. Vannucci. “Shock
Absorber Mathematical Modeling,” SAE pa-
per 982959.

Fig. 10 Response of the damping force vs the dis-

placement of the piston

4 Conclusions
In this paper, the mathematical model of the shock
absorber which contains rebound chamber, compres-
sion chamber, piston valve assembly, base valve as-
sembly is given in the paper, then a simulation model
is established using MWorks/modelica software, the
simulations are performed to evaluate the damping
force of the shock absorber. The results shows that