Curving performance simulation of an EMS-type Maglev vehicle

For electromagnetic suspension (EMS) type urban Maglev vehicles using a U-shaped electromagnet, the levitation and guidance forces are generated by only one electromagnet. Although the levitation force is actively controlled by changing the voltage of the electromagnet, the guidance force is passively determined by the levitation force. In addition, the curve negotiation performance of EMS-type urban Maglev vehicles using a U-shaped electromagnet must be considered, because an urban guideway may have some curves with shorter radii. It is, therefore, necessary to predict the curving performance with the greatest accuracy possible, in order to improve electromagnetic suspension and establish guideway design specifications. The objective is to establish a new dynamic modelling technique, so as to achieve more realistic curving simulation and thus to more accurately evaluate the curving performance of an EMS-type Maglev vehicle. The use of a full vehicle multibody dynamic model is proposed, and is applied to the evaluation of curving performance. Design changes are also investigated to obtain the bogie design directions for minimising variation in the lateral air gap, which is a criterion for curving performance.     

Design and validation of a slender guideway for Maglev vehicle by simulation and experiment

Normally, Maglev (magnetic levitation) vehicles run on elevated guideways. The elevated guideway must satisfy various load conditions of the vehicle, and has to be designed to ensure ride quality, while ensuring that the levitation stability of the vehicle is not affected by the deflection of the guideway. However, because the elevated guideways of Maglev vehicles in South Korea and other countries fabricated so far have been based on over-conservative design criteria, the size of the structures has increased. Further, from the cost perspective, they are unfavourable when compared with other light rail transits such as monorail, rubber wheel, and steel wheel automatic guided transit. Therefore, a slender guideway that does have an adverse effect on the levitation stability of the vehicle is required through optimisation of design criteria. In this study, to predict the effect of various design parameters of the guideway on the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle, simulations were carried out using a dynamics model similar to the actual vehicle and guideway, and a limiting value of deflection ratio of the slender guideway to ensure levitation control is proposed. A guideway that meets the requirement as per the proposed limit for deflection ratio was designed and fabricated, and through a driving test of the vehicle, the validity of the slender guideway was verified. From the results, it was confirmed that although some increase in airgap and cabin acceleration was observed with the proposed slender guideway when compared with the conventional guideway, there was no notable adverse effect on the levitation stability and ride quality of the vehicle. Therefore, it can be inferred that the results of this study will become the basis for establishing design criteria for slender guideways of Maglev vehicles in future.     

Effects of the guideway's vibrational characteristics on the dynamics of a Maglev vehicle

The levitation control system in an electromagnetically levitated vehicle controls the voltage in its winding to maintain the air gap, which is the clearance between the electromagnet and the guideway, within an allowable range of variation, while strongly interacting with the flexible guideway. Thus, the vibrational characteristics of the guideway play an important role in the dynamics of Maglev (magnetically levitated) vehicles that utilise an active electromagnetic suspension system. In this study, the effects of the guideway's vibrational characteristics, such as natural frequency and damping, on the dynamics of the Maglev vehicle UTM-02 are numerically and experimentally analysed. From these analyses, the coupled equations of motion of the simplified vehicle–guideway model with three degrees of freedom are derived. Eigenvalues are calculated and frequency response analysis is also performed, in order to obtain a clear understanding of the dynamic characteristics resulting from the guideway's vibrational characteristics. To verify the numerical results, air gap tests of the urban Maglev vehicle UTM-02 are also carried out. These results lead us to recommend that the natural frequency of the guideway be decreased by increasing mass density rather than by decreasing rigidity, and that its damping ratio be increased in the Maglev vehicle UTM-02 employing a five-state feedback control law as a levitation control law.     

Analysis of dynamic response of the high-speed EMS maglev vehicle/guideway coupling system with random irregularity

A new dynamic model of a high-speed EMS maglev vehicle/guideway interaction is presented. The model considers the vehicle and the guideway as an integral system and couples vertical interaction with lateral interaction. The vehicle subsystem is modeled as a multi-body system, which runs on the guideway with a constant velocity. The guideway substructure is modeled as an elastic beam. The attractive magnetic forces between vehicle and guideway are decided by controller, observer, and filter. A special simulation program is developed. Numerical results of the program are compared with test results. The results show that the coupling model is appropriate and the simulation program is credible primarily. Applications of coupling model to the investigation of the effect of irregularities on maglev system are reported at the end of the paper. The studies in this paper can be used to evaluate and optimize dynamic performances of the high-speed EMS maglev system.     

Analysis of dynamic response of the high-speed EMS maglev vehicle/guideway coupling system with random irregularity

A new dynamic model of a high-speed EMS maglev vehicle/guideway interaction is presented. The model considers the vehicle and the guideway as an integral system and couples vertical interaction with lateral interaction. The vehicle subsystem is modeled as a multi-body system, which runs on the guideway with a constant velocity. The guideway substructure is modeled as an elastic beam. The attractive magnetic forces between vehicle and guideway are decided by controller, observer, and filter. A special simulation program is developed. Numerical results of the program are compared with test results. The results show that the coupling model is appropriate and the simulation program is credible primarily. Applications of coupling model to the investigation of the effect of irregularities on maglev system are reported at the end of the paper. The studies in this paper can be used to evaluate and optimize dynamic performances of the high-speed EMS maglev system.     

Coupled vibration analysis of Maglev vehicle-guideway while standing still or moving at low speeds

Dynamic instability, that is, resonance, may occur on an electromagnetic suspension-type Maglev that runs over the elevated guideway, particularly at very low speeds, due to the flexibility of the guideway. An analysis of the dynamic interaction between the vehicle and guideway is required at the design stage to investigate such instability, setting slender guideway in design direction for reducing construction costs. In addition, it is essential to design an effective control algorithm to solve the problem of instability. In this article, a more detailed model for the dynamic interaction of vehicle/guideway is proposed. The proposed model incorporates a 3D full vehicle model based on virtual prototyping, flexible guideway by a modal superposition method and levitation electromagnets including feedback controller into an integrated model. By applying the proposed model to an urban Maglev vehicle newly developed for commercial application, an analysis of the instability phenomenon and an investigation of air gap control performance are carried out through a simulation.     

Ride quality evaluation of a vehicle with a planar suspension system

The longitudinal connection between a chassis and a wheel in a conventional vehicle suspension system is commonly very stiff than the vertical connection. Such a mechanism can efficiently isolate vibrations and absorb shocks in the vertical direction but cannot sufficiently attenuate the impact in the longitudinal direction. In order to overcome such a limitation, a planar suspension system (PSS) with spring–damper struts in both the longitudinal and vertical directions is proposed so that the vibration along any direction in the wheel rotation plane can be isolated. In this paper, the dynamic responses of a vehicle with PSS due to a single bump and random road unevenness are investigated. The ride quality of the vehicle with PSS is evaluated in accordance with ISO 2631. A comparison with that of a similar conventional vehicle is conducted to demonstrate the promising potentials of the PSS in improving the vehicle ride quality.     

Semi-active H∞ control of high-speed railway vehicle suspension with magnetorheological dampers

In this paper, semi-active H∞ control with magnetorheological (MR) dampers for railway vehicle suspension systems to improve the lateral ride quality is investigated. The proposed semi-active controller is composed of a H∞ controller as the system controller and an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) inverse MR damper model as the damper controller. First, a 17-degree-of-freedom model for a full-scale railway vehicle is developed and the random track irregularities are modelled. Then a modified Bouc–Wen model is built to characterise the forward dynamic characteristics of the MR damper and an inverse MR damper model is built with the ANFIS technique. Furthermore, a H∞ controller composed of a yaw motion controller and a rolling pendulum motion (lateral motion+roll motion) controller is established. By integrating the H∞ controller with the ANFIS inverse model, a semi-active H∞ controller for the railway vehicle is finally proposed. Simulation results indicate that the proposed semi-active suspension system possesses better attenuation ability for the vibrations of the car body than the passive suspension system.     

Ride dynamic evaluations and design optimisation of a torsio-elastic off-road vehicle suspension

The ride dynamic characteristics of a novel torsio-elastic suspension for off-road vehicle applications are investigated through field measurements and simulations. A prototype suspension was realised and integrated within the rear axle of a forestry skidder for field evaluations. Field measurements were performed on forestry terrains at a constant forward speed of 5 km/h under the loaded and unloaded conditions, and the ride responses were acquired in terms of accelerations along the vertical, lateral, roll, longitudinal and pitch axes. The measurements were also performed on a conventional skidder to investigate the relative ride performance potentials of the proposed suspension. The results revealed that the proposed suspension could yield significant reductions in magnitudes of transmitted vibration to the operator seat. Compared with the unsuspended vehicle, the prototype suspended vehicle resulted in nearly 35%, 43% and 57% reductions in the frequency-weighted rms accelerations along the x-, y- and z-axis, respectively. A 13-degree-of-freedom ride dynamic model of the vehicle with rear-axle torsio-elastic suspension was subsequently derived and validated in order to study the sensitivity of the ride responses to suspension parameters. Optimal suspension parameters were identified using the Pareto technique based on the genetic algorithm to obtain minimal un-weighted and frequency-weighted rms acceleration responses. The optimal solutions resulted in further reduction in the pitch acceleration in the order of 20%, while the reductions in roll and vertical accelerations ranged from 3.5 to 6%.     

Designing a non-linear tracking controller for vehicle active suspension systems using an optimization process

In this paper, a new non-linear tracking controller for vehicle active suspension systems is analytically designed using an optimization process. The proposed scheme employs a realistic non-linear quarter-car model, which is composed of a hardening spring and a quadratic damping force. The control input is the external active suspension force and is determined by minimizing a performance index defined as a weighted combination of conflicting objectives, namely ride quality, handling performance and control energy. A linear skyhook model with standard parameters is used as the reference model to be tracked by the controller. The robustness of the proposed controller in the presence of modeling uncertainties is investigated. The performed analysis and the simulation results indicate that both vehicle ride comfort and handling performance can be improved using the minimum external force when the proposed non-linear controller is engaged with the model. Meanwhile, a compromise between different objectives and control energy can easily be made by regulating their respective weighting factors, which are the free parameters of the control law.     

Rollover mitigation for a heavy commercial vehicle

A heavy commercial vehicle has a high probability of rollover because it is usually loaded heavily and thus has a high center of gravity. An anti-roll bar is efficient for rollover mitigation, but it can cause poor ride comfort when the roll stiffness is excessively high. Therefore, active roll control (ARC) systems have been developed to optimally control the roll state of a vehicle while maintaining ride comfort. Previously developed ARC systems have some disadvantages, such as cost, complexity, power consumption, and weight. In this study, an ARC-based rear air suspension for a heavy commercial vehicle, which does not require additional power for control, was designed and manufactured. The rollover index-based vehicle rollover mitigation control scheme was used for the ARC system. Multi-body dynamic models of the suspension subsystem and the full vehicle were used to design the rear air suspension and the ARC system. The reference rollover index was tuned through lab tests. Field tests, such as steady state cornering tests and step steer tests, demonstrated that the roll response characteristics in the steady state and transient state were improved.     

Roll and pitch independently tuned interconnected suspension: modelling and dynamic analysis

In this paper, a roll and pitch independently tuned hydraulically interconnected passive suspension is presented. Due to decoupling of vibration modes and the improved lateral and longitudinal stability, the stiffness of individual suspension spring can be reduced for improving ride comfort and road grip. A generalised 14 degree-of-freedom nonlinear vehicle model with anti-roll bars is established to investigate the vehicle ride and handling dynamic responses. The nonlinear fluidic model of the hydraulically interconnected suspension is developed and integrated with the full vehicle model to investigate the anti-roll and anti-pitch characteristics. Time domain analysis of the vehicle model with the proposed suspension is conducted under different road excitations and steering/braking manoeuvres. The dynamic responses are compared with conventional suspensions to demonstrate the potential of enhanced ride and handling performance. The results illustrate the model-decoupling property of the hydraulically interconnected system. The anti-roll and anti-pitch performance could be tuned independently by the interconnected systems. With the improved anti-roll and anti-pitch characteristics, the bounce stiffness and ride damping can be optimised for better ride comfort and tyre grip.     

Heavy vehicle pitch dynamics and suspension tuning. Part I: unconnected suspension

The influence of suspension tuning of passenger cars on bounce and pitch ride performance has been explored in a number of studies, while only minimal efforts have been made for establishing similar rules for heavy vehicles. This study aims to explore pitch dynamics and suspension tunings of a two-axle heavy vehicle with unconnected suspension, which could also provide valuable information for heavy vehicles with coupled suspensions. Based on a generalised pitch-plane model of a two-axle heavy vehicle integrating either unconnected or coupled suspension, three dimensionless measures of suspension properties are defined and analysed—namely the pitch margin (PM), pitch stiffness ratio (PSR), and coupled pitch stiffness ratio (CPSR)—for different unconnected suspension tunings and load conditions. Dynamic responses of the vehicle with three different load conditions and five different tunings of the unconnected suspension are obtained under excitations arising from three different random road roughness conditions and a wide range of driving speeds, and braking manoeuvres. The responses are evaluated in terms of performance measures related to vertical and pitch ride, dynamic tyre load, suspension travel, and pitch-attitude control characteristics of the vehicle. Fundamental relationships between the vehicle responses and the proposed suspension measures (PM, PSR, and CPSR) are established, based on which some basic suspension tuning rules for heavy vehicles with unconnected suspensions are also proposed.     

Accumulated tolerance analysis of suspension by geometric tolerances based on multibody elasto-kinematic analysis

Tolerance design of vehicle suspension is an important factor that affects the ride and handling quality and cost of the vehicle. Also, applying geometric tolerance to an analysis model is found to be a difficult process. This paper presents a method for tolerance analysis of wheel alignment of vehicle suspension. Monte-Carlo simulation method is applied to multibody elasto-kinematic model to analyze the accumulated geometric tolerances. As an example, Macpherson Strut Type front half car model is used, and wheel alignment dispersion and contribution ratio to the dispersion by accumulated geometric tolerances is computed. This paper also presents an efficient modeling and analysis method for elasto-kinematic model of vehicle suspensions by computing the stiffness matrix analytically. The simulation results of a Macpherson Strut Type demonstrates the validity and accuracy of the proposed method.     

Preview suspension control for a full tracked vehicle

In this study, preview control algorithms for the active and semi-active suspension systems of a full tracked vehicle (FTV) are designed based on a 3-D.O.F model and evaluated. The main issue of this study is to make the ride comfort characteristics of a fast moving tracked vehicle better to keep an operator’s driving capability. Since road wheels almost trace the profiles of the road surface as long as the track doesn’t depart from the ground, the preview information can be obtained by measuring only the absolute position or velocity of the first road wheel. Simulation results show that the performance of the sky-hook suspension system almost follows that of full state feedback suspension system and the on-off semi-active system carries out remarkable performance with the combination of 12 on-off semi-active suspension units. The results simulated with 1^st and 2^nd weighting sets mean that the suspension system combined with the soft type of inner suspension and hard type of outer suspension can carry out better ride comfort characteristics than that with identical suspensions. The full tracked vehicle (FTV) system is uncontrollable and the system is split into controllable and uncontrollable subspace using singular value decomposition transformation. Frequency response curves to four types of inputs, such as heaving, pitching, rolling, and warping inputs, also demonstrate the merits of preview control in ride comfort. All the frequency characteristic responses confirm the continuous time results.     

Maglev Vehicle/Guideway Vertical Random Response and Ride Quality

Summary The research and development (R & D) of maglev technology had made a great progress in China since the early 1980s. Especially, a 35 km-long Shanghai high-speed maglev railway employing the German Transrapid system began to be constructed on March 1, 2001. Based on the Transrapid system, the paper develops a 10-degree-of-freedom model of maglev vehicle running over three types of guideways with constant speed. Random guideway irregularities are discussed and taken into account for simulation of the vehicle response and for evaluation of the ride comfort. Using the direct time integration method and the discrete fast Fourier transform (DFFT), random responses of the maglev vehicle-guideway systems are obtained and analyzed. Numerical results show that the resonant frequency of car body acceleration response is 0.5–1 Hz, and there is a 2.2 Hz periodic vibration due to the periodic configuration of rigid piers when the maglev vehicle travels over the elevated-beam guideway. The car body acceleration power spectral density (PSD) curves meet well the ride quality criterion of the urban tracked aircushion vehicle (UTACV) and the maximum acceleration of car body is less than 0.05 g. Moreover, the Sperling ride index values are less than 2.5 as long as the operational speed is less than 450 km/h. It is concluded that the maglev vehicle ride quality is quite well.     

Maglev Vehicle/Guideway Vertical Random Response and Ride Quality

Summary The research and development (R & D) of maglev technology had made a great progress in China since the early 1980s. Especially, a 35 km-long Shanghai high-speed maglev railway employing the German Transrapid system began to be constructed on March 1, 2001. Based on the Transrapid system, the paper develops a 10-degree-of-freedom model of maglev vehicle running over three types of guideways with constant speed. Random guideway irregularities are discussed and taken into account for simulation of the vehicle response and for evaluation of the ride comfort. Using the direct time integration method and the discrete fast Fourier transform (DFFT), random responses of the maglev vehicle-guideway systems are obtained and analyzed. Numerical results show that the resonant frequency of car body acceleration response is 0.5-1 Hz, and there is a 2.2 Hz periodic vibration due to the periodic configuration of rigid piers when the maglev vehicle travels over the elevated-beam guideway. The car body acceleration power spectral density (PSD) curves meet well the ride quality criterion of the urban tracked aircushion vehicle (UTACV) and the maximum acceleration of car body is less than 0.05 g. Moreover, the Sperling ride index values are less than 2.5 as long as the operational speed is less than 450 km/h. It is concluded that the maglev vehicle ride quality is quite well.     

A Pitch-Plane Model of a Vehicle with Controlled Suspension

A vehicle model incorporating front and rear wheel suspensions and seat suspension is presented. The suspension control includes algorithms to provide both dynamic and steady state (levelling) control. Vehicle response to (a) vertical inputs due to ground disturbances at the wheels and (b) longitudinal inputs due to the inertial forces during braking and accelerating, are investigated. It is shown that the static (self-levelling) control causes a slight deterioration in dynamic performance. The active ride control produces improvements of ride comfort under dynamic conditions compared to an equivalent passively suspended vehicle. In steady state the proposed control eliminates the error heave of the body caused by tilting of the vehicle with active suspension.     

Enhancing grey prediction fuzzy controller for active suspension systems

A grey prediction fuzzy controller (GPFC) was proposed to control an active suspension system and evaluate its control performance. The GPFC employed the grey prediction algorithm to predict the position output error of the sprung mass and the error change as input variables of the traditional fuzzy controller (TFC) in controlling the suspension system to suppress the vibration and the acceleration amplitudes of the sprung mass for improving the ride comfort of the TFC used; however, the TFC or GPFC was employed to control the suspension system, resulting in a large tire deflection so that the road-holding ability in the vehicle becomes worse than with the original passive control strategy. To overcome the problem, this work developed an enhancing grey prediction fuzzy controller (EGPFC) that not only had the original GPFC property but also introduced the tire dynamic effect into the controller design, also using the grey prediction algorithm to predict the next tire deflection error and the error change as input variables of another TFC, to control the suspension system for enhancing the road-holding capability of the vehicle. The EGPFC has better control performances in suppressing the vibration and the acceleration amplitudes of the sprung mass to improve the ride quality and in reducing the tire deflection to enhance the road-holding ability of the vehicle, than both TFC and GPFC, as confirmed by experimental results.     

Enhancing grey prediction fuzzy controller for active suspension systems

A grey prediction fuzzy controller (GPFC) was proposed to control an active suspension system and evaluate its control performance. The GPFC employed the grey prediction algorithm to predict the position output error of the sprung mass and the error change as input variables of the traditional fuzzy controller (TFC) in controlling the suspension system to suppress the vibration and the acceleration amplitudes of the sprung mass for improving the ride comfort of the TFC used; however, the TFC or GPFC was employed to control the suspension system, resulting in a large tire deflection so that the road-holding ability in the vehicle becomes worse than with the original passive control strategy. To overcome the problem, this work developed an enhancing grey prediction fuzzy controller (EGPFC) that not only had the original GPFC property but also introduced the tire dynamic effect into the controller design, also using the grey prediction algorithm to predict the next tire deflection error and the error change as input variables of another TFC, to control the suspension system for enhancing the road-holding capability of the vehicle. The EGPFC has better control performances in suppressing the vibration and the acceleration amplitudes of the sprung mass to improve the ride quality and in reducing the tire deflection to enhance the road-holding ability of the vehicle, than both TFC and GPFC, as confirmed by experimental results.