Suppression of Bumpstop Instabilities in a Quarter-Car Model

Vehicle manufacturers are constantly pushed to reduce the aerodynamic drag of vehicles, for example by constructing lower vehicles with less road clearance. This, however, reduces the available margin for oscillations within the suspension. If the oscillation amplitude exceeds a critical value, the suspension will impact a bumpstop. Under periodic excitation, the onset of low-velocity impacts is associated with a strong instability in favor of high-velocity impacts. Such impacts reduce comfort and could be damaging to the vehicle. Efforts should therefore be made to limit impact velocities with the bumpstop, for example by suppressing the instability associated with low-velocity impacts. This paper proposes a low-cost feedback-control strategy, based on making small adjustments to the position of the bumpstop, that serve to suppress the transition to high-velocity impacts with the bumpstop in the case of periodic excitation. The control law is derived from the theory of discontinuity maps. The results demonstrate that the feedback strategy works even when wheel-hop is present.