2H,(/r"',~(( 2 > 2

2F+}1 1 ~(,:B01-0009
Modelling and Simulation of Half Car Suspension System with a
MR Damper Using RecurDyn and Simulink
Chih-Hsuan Lee, Chiu-Ling Chen, Shun-Hsu Tu and Wes S. Jeng
Jeng-Fu Shen and Feng Tyan Sky Leading Corportation
Computational Dynamics and Control Lab Chupei, Hsin Chu County, Taiwan 30204, R. O. C.
Dept. of Aerospace Engineering
Tamkang University
Tamshui, Taipei County, Taiwan 25147, R. O. C.
ITRI Project: 5353C46000
AbstractThis work implements the multibody system
simulation software RecurDyn and a block-oriented soft-
ware Simulink to construct a closed-loop system of half-car
suspension system with magnetorheological(MR) damper.
From response perspective, with the aid of RecurDyn, there
is no need to derive the equations of motion for the half-car
suspension system under consideration, in addition the MR
damper is built as a subsystem thereby posses portability.
The Simulink a versatile interface able of handling any type
of controller to be tested. Through a numerical example,
the effectiveness of cosimulation of RecurDyn and Simulink
in reducing the period of time of developing an satisfactory
controller for the suspension system is demonstrated.
keywords: RecurDyn, Simulink, Magnetorheological uid
damper, Suspension system.
I. INTRODUCTION
When MATLAB/Simulink serves to deal with various
control problems, it inevitably has difculties in con-
structing the equations of motion of complex multibody
dynamic systems. For this reason, RecurDyn is in the
position to overcome this issue. RecurDyn is the multi-
body dynamic software based on an epochal equations
of motion theory. A 3D mechanical system, instead of a
simplied 2D model derived by hand, can be implemented
conventionally under a 3D environment in RecurDyn.
RecurDyn gives an alternative solution for large-scale
multi-body problems, including analysis of impact, and
for various mechanisms which are made up of rigid or
exible bodies.
This paper demonstrates the usage of a co-simulation
strategy for a closed-loop half vehicle suspension with
a MR damper and controller. The closed-loop system is
consisted of two parts:
(i) half-car suspension model and an MR damper,
(ii) controller.
The half-car suspension system is constructed in Recur-
Dyn, while Simulink realizes the controller of interest. The
simulation strategy has introduced in [1, 2] whereas this
work discuss more details of constructing dynamic model
in RecurDyn. The procedure of sketch is illustrated in
the Fig. 1 Part (i) half-car suspension system model and
Half Car Suspension
System with a MR damper
Design Controller
RecurDyn MATLAB/Simulink
Fig. 1. Construct system procedure
an MR damper construct from RecurDyn. Part (ii) Con-
troller design from Simulink. Than simulation combine
RecurDyn and Simulink.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II introduces
the construction of a complex suspension system in Recur-
Dyn. Section III introduces the integration of RecurDyn
and Simulink. The materials in section II and III are come
from the work of Dyke [3]. Section IV gives the results
of simulation and section V draws the conclusion of this
work.
II. DYNAMIC MODEL OF SUSPENSION SYSTEM
Vibration control of vehicle suspension systems in-
cludes passive, active and semi-active controls. For com-
parison of a passive suspension with an active one, a
more detailed information can be found in [3, 4] and the
references therein. For an automotive suspension, semi-
active control were proposed in the early 1970s [5], which
can be nearly as effective as fully active suspensions
in improving ride quality. Semi-active control devices
potentially offer the reliability of passive devices, yet
maintain the versatility and adaptability of fully active
systems [6]. Such devices typically have extremely low
control power, but providing forces active only some of
the time that a full active system might act. When the
control system fails, the semi-active suspension can still
work in passive condition.
CSME-1254
A. Basic Model of Suspension System with RecurDyn
Fig. 2 shows the sketch of half car model system
with MR damper [7]. The suspension model consists of
d
1
d
2
b
1
b
2
m
p1 m
p2
m
t2
m
t1
k
t1
c
t1
m, I
p
C
1
K
1
k
p1
c
p1 k
p2
c
p2
K
2 C
2
k
t2
c
t2
x
c

x
p1
x
t1
y
1
x
p2
x
t2
y
2
MR-Actuator
Fig. 2. Half car model with MR actuators
a chassis, two axles, and two passenger seats. Linear
springs and viscous dampers support the chassis, tyres and
passenger seats in parallel as shown in Fig. 2. Table I [3]
lists the notation adopted in Fig. 2. Eight states are needed
to fully describe this 2D model. It is a tedious work to
TABLE I
SUSPENSION PARAMETERS [3]
Notation Description Units Values
m Chassis mass kg 1794
I
p
Chassis intertia kgm
2
3443.05
m
p1
Front passenger mass kg 75
m
p2
Rear passenger mass kg 75
m
t1
Front tyre mass kg 87.15
m
t2
Rear tyre mass kg 140.04
K
1
Front main stiffness N/m 66824.2
K
2
Rear main stiffness N/m 18615.0
k
p1
Front seat stiffness N/m 14000.0
k
p2
Rear seat stiffness N/m 14000,0
b
1
Distance m 1.271
b
2
Distance m 1.713
d
1
Distance m 0.481
d
2
Distance m 1.313
C
1
Front main damping Ns/m 1190
C
2
Rear main damping Ns/m 1000
c
p1
Front seat damping Ns/m 1190
c
p2
Rear seat damping Ns/m 1000
c
t1
Front tyre damping Ns/m 1190
c
t2
Rear tyre damping Ns/m 1000
derive the equation of motion for this system. However,
a 3D half car in RecurDyn can be build without any
mathematical derivation, which is the source of tedious
work.
The toolkit bar shown in Fig. 3 is used to construct
dynamic models in RecurDyn with just Pull-and-Click
interface. It is convenient to realize a dynamic system for
a user not familiar with dynamics. The entities desired
Fig. 3. Toolkits bar of RecurDyn
and adjusted suitable parameters, functions and expres-
sions are selected. Following description introduce the
construction of 3D half car in RecurDyn: Box bodies
are substituted for chassis, two axles and two passenger
seats; moreover disturbance of roads (y
1
, y
2
) are given
as two ellipsoids to put the dynamic constraints. First,
click the box icon to construct box bodies on the body
module. Adjust mass and moments of inertia are in dialog
box of properties of box body. Then, place four small
ellipsoids to the chassis to connect springs of two tyres and
spring of two passenger seats, respectively. To eliminate
the dynamic effect, assign a tiny mass, which is small
enough comparing to the mass of chassis, to ellipsoids.
Stiffness and damping parameters are substituted for both
linear springs and viscous dashpots. Select stiffness and
damping coefcients in table I. Translation joint allows
one translational degree of freedom. Then, add two trans-
lation joints between front ellipsoid and front tyre (y
1
),
rear ellipsoid (y
2
) and rear tyre. Others two translation
joints construct among ellipsoids (y
1
, y
2
) and ground;
two translation joints construct among passenger seats and
ground. Add inline joint between small ellipsoid in chassis
and front passenger; small ellipsoid in chassis and rear
passenger. Similarly, among the chassis and four small
ellipsoid in chassis, inline, cylindrical and inplane joints
are used. The primary propose that add various joints is to
eliminate redundant problem for dynamic system of half
car. Finally, the dynamic model of suspension system of
half car is nished with RecurDyn as shown in Fig 4.
B. Model of MR Damper with RecurDyn
A number of researchers, e.g. [6, 8], investigated appli-
cations of MR uid as controllable dampers (so-called MR
damper). MR damper is a kind of colloidal damper that
exhibits large reversible changes in ow properties such
as viscosity. When the magnetic eld strength reaches
a certain value, the suspension will be solidied and
has high yield stress; conversely, the suspension can be
CSME-1255
Fig. 4. System model in RecurDyn
liquied once more by removal of the magnetic eld [4].
Now, MR dampers are new semi-active control devices
that use MR uids to provide a controllable force.
1) Modied Bouc-Wen Model for MR damper: Modi-
ed Bouc-Wen model of MR damper [9] represented by a
mathematical function is realized. A sketch of this model
is shown in Fig. 5. The equations for the controllable force
y
a
x
a
F
Bouc-Wen
k
0
c
0
c
1
k
1
x
b
Fig. 5. Modied Bouc-Wen model of MR damper [9]
in this system are given by
F = c
1

y
a
+ c
1
( x
a
x
b
) + k
1
[(x
a
x
b
) x
0
]
=
c
1
c
0
+ c
1
[k
0
( y
a
) + ] +
c
0
c
1
c
0
+ c
1
( x
a
x
b
)
+ k
1
[(x
a
x
b
) x
0
] (2.1)
where

y
a
= x
a
y
a
=
1
c
0
+ c
1
[k
0
y
a
+ c
1
( x
a
x
b
)] (2.2)
and

=

y
a
{ ||
n
[sgn(

y
a
)sgn()]} (2.3)
The relations are proposed
=
a
+
b
u (2.4)
c
0
=c
0a
+ c
0b
u (2.5)
c
1
=c
1a
+ c
1b
u (2.6)
where u is governed by
u = (u v) (2.7)
The rst order lter given by equation (2.7) was in-
troduced to allow for the uids dynamics of reaching
rheological equilibrium. v is the voltage with values
between 0 and 2.25 volts applied to current driver. Table II
lists the values of 14 parameters (c
0a
, c
0b
, k
0
, c
1a
, c
1b
,
k
1
, x
0
,
a
,
b
, , , , n, ) [9].
TABLE II
PARAMETERS FOR GENERALIZED MODEL [9]
Parameter Value Units Parameter Value Units
c
0a
2100 Ns/m
a
14000 N/m
c
0b
350 Ns/mV
b
69500 N/mV
k
0
4690 N/m 36300 m
2
c
1a
28300 Ns/m 36300 m
2
c
1b
295 Ns/m 301
k
1
5 N/m n 2
x
0
0 m 190 s
1
2) MR Damper subsystem in RecurDyn: Next, we
specify how subentity menu to be used In RecurDyn.
The subentity menu consists of parametric points, para-
metric values, variable equations, differential equations,
expressions, splines, requests and material properties. The
construction of MR damper in RecurDyn is based on com-
ponents of expressions, variable equations and differential
equations. The expressions which we used equations (2.1)-
(2.7) are dened prior to be used. The equations (2.3),
(2.2) and (2.7) put into differential equations dialog box.
Dene equations (2.4), (2.5) and (2.6) in variable equa-
tions dialog box. Then, add axial force included equation
(2.1) in toolkits bar and exported a subsystem as show in
Fig. 6. Import subsystems between tyres and suspension
chassis. Thus, nished half car model system with MR
damper in RecurDyn.
III. RECURDYN/CONTROL TOOLKIT AND
MATLAB/SIMULINK
Assume the velocity of half car is 10 km/hr through a
bump. Bump inputs of displacement disturbance, (y
1
, y
2
),
are shown in Fig. 7. The front tyre pass bump at 2 second,
later the rear one pass bump. Thus, in RecurDyn, add
motion to ellipsoid bodies(y
1
, y
2
) selected displacement
function of y direction in translational joint, respectively.
Function (y
1
, y
2
) input expression lists dialog box.
CSME-1256
Fig. 6. Subsystem of MR damper
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Distrubance input of front tyre, y
1
Time (s)
D
i
s
t
u
r
b
a
n
c
e

i
n
p
u
t

(
m
)
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
Distrubance input of rear tyre, y
2
Time (s)
D
i
s
t
u
r
b
a
n
c
e

i
n
p
u
t

(
m
)
Fig. 7. Front tyre displacement input disturbance prole, y
1
and y
2
.
A. Plant Input and Plant Output with Co-Sim
RecurDyn/Control toolkit must dene plant input and
plant output in Control toolkit bar. In [3], we only dene
plant inputs, voltage of front MR damper (v
1
) and rear one
(v
2
), and outputs, MR forces, acceleration of front passen-
ger ( x
p1
) and rear one ( x
p2
), in RecurDyn/Control toolkit.
In order to design controller, these inputs and outputs are
used. On the other hand, we need analyze other states such
as passenger seat displacement (x
p1
, x
p2
) in MATLAB.
For this reason, Plant outputs, chassis displacement (x
c
),
chassis pitch (), passenger seat displacement (x
p1
, x
p2
)
and tyre displacement(x
t1
, x
t2
), is dened in RecurDyn.
It is produced m-le in the same folder, when execute Co-
Sim of Control toolkit bar. This m-le is used to generate
RecuDyn block in MATLAB/Simulink.
B. Controller Design Using MATLAB/Simulink
In [3], controller is implemented to this model. Under
Simulink the algorithm for selecting the applied voltage
can be written as:
v
i
= V
max
H((F
ci
F
i
)F
i
) i = 1, 2 (3.1)
where V
max
is the saturation voltage in the MR damper
and H is the Heaviside step function. The control strategy
is to add a force feedback control loop to induce the MR
damper to produce approximately the desired forces, F
ci
.
A linear optimal controller K
c
is designed to provide the
desired force F
ci
, i = 1, 2 based on the responses x
p1
,
x
p2
and the forces F
i
, i = 1, 2. Namely,

F
c1
F
c2

= K
c

x
p1
x
p2
F
1
F
2

(3.2)
In [3], it is given as:
K = R
1
B
T
P (3.3)
where P is the solution of the Algebraic Riccati Equation
(ARE) [3].
PA+A
T
PPBR
1
B
T
P+Q = 0 (3.4)
The Kalman gain L is found by solving S of the ARE [3].
AS +SA
T
+GWG
T
SC
T
m
V
1
C
m
S = 0 (3.5)
Then,
L = SC
T
m
V
1
(3.6)
Family, the controller transfer function are given
K
c
(s) = K[sI (ALC
m
)
1

B] (3.7)
where

B =

L BL

. (3.8)
The block diagram for the proposed control scheme is
shown in Fig. 8. The equation (3.1)-(3.7) are used block of
F1
F2
Fc1
Fc2
v1
v2
Voltage Algorithm
RecurDyn Plant Block
Random Source
y1
F1
F2
Fc1
Fc2
Controller
Fig. 8. Control diagram for car system
voltage algorithm and controller, individually, from Fig. 8
in MATLAB/Simulink.
CSME-1257
IV. NUMERICAL EXAMPLE
The suspension system and MR dampers are con-
structed from RecurDyn. By RecurDyn/Control toolkit,
the inputs and outputs of system plants was dened and
RecurDyn plant block was produced. A Controller was
described in the previous section by MATLAB/Simulink.
In [3], the values of the system matrices are
C
m
=

M N

(4.1)
where
M=

186.67 89.79 186.67 0

186.67 245.1 0 186.67

(4.2)
N =

0 0 0.67 0.32 0.67 0 0 0

0 0 0.83 1.09 0 0.83 0 0

(4.3)
and
W= 50I
4
, V = I
2
(4.4)
The values of the design matrices Q
y
and R are selected,
respectively,
Q
y
= 1.5eI
2
, R = 1e
2
I
2
(4.5)
where I
n
is the n n identity matrix. The simulation
results are shown in Fig. 9-12. The open loop system
is suspension without MR damper. Compared with open
loop, closed loop system in Fig. 9-12. For chassis sus-
pension, the vertical displacement is decayed after a short
period of time. We can be gained the better performance
by tuning of the design parameters Q
y
and R.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
Vertical displacement of the chassis, x
c
Time (s)
C
h
a
s
s
i
s

d
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
)


openloop
closeloop
Fig. 9. Chassis vertical displacement, x
c
.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Modelling and simulation of half car suspension system
with a MR damper using a multibody simulation pack-
age, RecurDyn/Control Toolkit, and MATLAB/Siumlink
is presented in this paper. Readers are guided through
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
Rotatational displacement of the chassis,
Time (s)
C
h
a
s
s
i
s

p
i
t
c
h

(
r
a
d
)


openloop
closeloop
Fig. 10. Chassis pitch, .
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.1
0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
Vertical displacement of Driver, x
p1
Time (s)
D
r
i
v
e
r

s
e
a
t

d
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
)


openloop
closeloop
Fig. 11. First passenger seat displacement, x
p1
one example to learn the integration of the above two
programs. The nice feature of RecurDyn is it does not
need the mathematical model of plant or system. Further,
it is easy to expand the current half-car model into a full-
car model along with four MR dampers suspension system
in the future. In the mean time, a 3-D road disturbance can
be constructed in RecurDyn and suitable controller can be
designed to satisfy a certain performance index by using
the MATLAB/Simulink. Now, a 3-D road disturbance be
constructed with half-car model as show in Fig. 13. Most
importantly, engineer can view the motion of a system
through the animation of RecurDyn. Thus, this multibody
simulation package is an efcient one and suitable for
constructing a complicated plant system with sophisticated
controller.
CSME-1258
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
Vertical displacement of passenger, x
p2
Time (s)
P
a
s
s
e
n
g
e
r

s
e
a
t

d
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(
m
)


openloop
closeloop
Fig. 12. Second passenger seat displacement, x
p2
Fig. 13. Half Car in 3D Random Road
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by the Industrial Technol-
ogy Research Institute through Grant ITRI 5353C46000.
The authors acknowledge the support of Department of In-
dustrial Technology of the Ministry of Economic Affairs,
R.O.C., through Science Technology program.
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[6] S. J. Dyke, B. F. Spencer Jr., M. K. Sain, and J. D. Carlson,
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[7] M. A. Karkoub and M. Zribi, Optimal control of suspension
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[8] T. Butz and O. V. Stryk, Modellng and simulation of electro- and
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CSME-1259