A Feasibility Study on Indirect Identification of Transmission Forces through Rubber Bushing in Vehicle Suspension System by Using Vibration Signals Measured on Links

This paper presents a feasibility study on using the rubber bushing itself as a sensor for the identification of transmission forces in vehicle suspension systems. The method starts from the idea that the transmission forces can be related to the deformation of the rubber bushing by an appropriate model and the deformation of the rubber bushing can be obtained by estimation of the relative vibration across the bushing. Simple theories are presented to deal with modeling of a given geometry of rubber bushing by a concentric spring and damper, correlating of measurements of the vibration on the links to the stiffness and damping parameters, and selection of the vibration measurement positions. Importance of the measurement position selection in relation to the measurement noise is illustrated by simulation studies. Then, validity of the proposed indirect approach will be shown by applications to a rear suspension system of dual link type.