Study on Semi-active Control for Leaf Spring Suspension Based on Virtual Prototyping

Conventional leaf spring suspension in heavy duty trucks can afford large carry capacity and better handling stability ability but less ride performance. In this paper a semi-active control was embed to the leaf spring suspension. The dynamics model of semi-active leaf spring suspension was built and analyzed. A full function heavy duty tractor using virtual prototyping was built and assembled in dynamics simulation software. A bumpy road test was performed to verify the performance of the proposed semi-active suspension. The results show that the semi-active leaf spring suspension proposed in this paper can improve the ride performance of the heavy duty trucks. The occupants in the vehicle cab will feel more comfortable.