Experimental Investigation of Two Types Interconnected Hydro-Pneumatic Struts

The dynamic properties of two types of interconnected hydro-pneumatic struts (HPSs), which are designed based on two different types of the HPSs with integrated gas chamber, have been investigated through the setup experiment on the designed prototypes and established numerical model on the basis of the AMEsim software in this research work. Detailed analysis of the dynamic properties has been posted on the experimental data, including the in-phase and out-of-phase tests. Special emphasis has been placed on the analysis of some unusual phenomenon shown in the experiment, such as the negative output force, output force distortion, and small stiffness, and so on, which are seldom reported by researchers in this area. Then, the effect of the structural parameters, which include the length/diameter of the interconnected pipes and the size of orifices, to the dynamic properties, especially to the unusual phenomenon shown in the experiment, will be discussed through the established AMEsim model, in which the validity of the AMEsim model has been verified through the experiment. The presented research work provides the fundamental investigation on two types of interconnected HPSs, which have great potential application in the area of a vehicle suspension system.