Equivalent Circuit Modeling of Vehicle Dynamics With Regenerative Shock Absorbers

Regenerative shock absorbers have potential to recover a large amount of kinetic energy from vehicle vibration otherwise dissipated in traditional oil shock absorbers and at the same time to improve the ride comfort and road handling performances. Linear, rotational and mechanical motion rectifier (MMR) based electromagnetic designs have been proposed. They all have different energy conversion mechanisms, mass inertia effects, and even some nonlinear structures which make the damping behavior more complex; therefore their influence to the whole vehicle dynamics will need to be carefully assessed. This paper will present an integrated equivalent circuit model of the vehicle with electromagnetic regenerative shock absorbers, and then evaluate the vehicle dynamics performance and energy harvesting potential with different design parameters and under variable road conditions. The performance of different mechanisms of electromagnetic regenerative shock absorbers and constant shock absorber will be compared. Design guidelines for rotational electromagnetic regenerative shock absorbers will be developed based on analysis and simulation results.