Experimental Investigation of a Hydraulically Interconnected Suspension in Vehicle Dynamics and Stability Control

Mainly motivated by developing cost-effective vehicle anti-roll systems, hydraulically interconnected suspension has been studied in the past decade to replace anti-roll bars. It has been proved theoretically and practically that hydraulic suspensions have superior anti-roll ability over anti-roll bars, and therefore they have achieved commercial success in racing cars and luxury sports utility vehicles (SUVs). However, since vehicle is a highly coupled complex system, it is necessary to investigate/evaluate the hydraulic-suspension-fitted-vehicle's dynamic performance in other aspects, apart from anti-roll ability, such as ride comfort, lateral stability, etc. This paper presents an experimental investigation of a SUV fitted with a hydraulically interconnected suspension under a severe steady steering maneuver; the result is compared with a same type vehicle fitted with anti-roll bars. Furthermore, an insight of how the hydraulic suspension response to extreme maneuvers has been presented, which is of great interest to the optimization of the hydraulic suspension design. Real time simulations are used to assist the experiment to provide a complete picture of the hydraulic system response. The findings are discussed.