Front. Mech. Eng.

China 2008, 3(1): 97100

DOI 10.1007/s11465-008-0014-5

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Mingming DONG, Hua HUANG, Lian GU

Design of damping valve for vehicle hydro pneumatic

suspension

Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2008

Abstract According to the design features of a hydro

pneumatic spring, the necessity of a separate damping
valve is proposed. Based on a 1/4 vehicle linear
suspension model, the optimum damping coefficient is
worked out and the parameters of the damping valve are
determined with the equivalent linearization method. A
practical structure of the damping valve is proposed
having a small size, high flowrate when the valve opens,
and the ability of enduring high back pressure. Based on
bench tests, the damping valve has been found to
properly work and be suitable. The design method and
damping valve structure are useful guides for hydro
pneumatic suspension, especially for the design of heavyduty vehicles.
Keywords hydro pneumatic suspension, damping valve,
equivalent linearization

Introduction

A suspension is an important subsystem of a vehicle. It

elastically connects the body and the wheel, isolates the
shock and vibration caused by road roughness, and keeps
the vehicle running smoothly. A high-performance
suspension is the basis for improving the maneuverability
and comfort of a vehicle.
The stiffness of a hydro pneumatic suspension
increases with suspension movement [1]. This means that
when the suspension movement alters in a small range,
the stiffness of the suspension is low, which will provide
excellent comfort and can absorb shock and vibration
when the vehicle encounters hard roads with a few
undulations. On the other hand, when the suspension
movement dramatically increases, the stiffness of the
Translated from Transactions of Beijing Institute of Technology,
2006, 26(4): 301304 [: ]
Mingming DONG (*), Hua HUANG, Lian GU
School of Mechanical and Vehicular Engineering, Beijing Institute
of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
E-mail: vdmm@bit.edu.cn

suspension will increase. The proposed method can

prevent bumps on the suspension system and also can
restrain the pitching vibration.

Advantages of detached damping valve

A hydro pneumatic suspension consists of a hydro

pneumatic spring and a suspension leverage. The hydro
pneumatic spring can act as the elasticity and damping
element because the oil within it can be used to transmit
forces. With a proper damping mechanism added on the
pipeline of the oil, the hydro pneumatic spring can work
as a damper.
Even without the special damping mechanism element,
the hydro pneumatic spring can have some damping
functions. The damping comes from two aspects: one is
the throttle resistance and passage resistance along the
pipeline and the other is the energy exchange during
the compression and expansion of the working gas. The
second type of damping, which depends on not only
the structure of the spring but also the working
conditions and environmental temperature, is the socalled inner damping of a hydro pneumatic spring. Its
magnitude is hard to accurately control during a design
period. Compared with the first part, it is less important
and small [23]. The first part of the damping can be
controlled by adopting a different length and diameter of
the pipeline. Because the passage resistance is proportional to the oil viscosity, which is sensitive to temperature, the variation of temperature will cause the
alteration of the damping [4].
Because of the disadvantages in previous dampers,
designing a separate damping valve to perform the
damping role is necessary. The separate damping valve
has some merits as follows. First, the separate damping
valve uses a thin wall orifice as the damping part, in
which the damping force almost has nothing to do with
the oil viscosity. Second, armed with a separate valve,
pipes with larger diameters can be adopted because
there is no need for them to be used for damping.

98

Mingming DONG, et al.

Hence, the variety of the pipe length will not greatly

influence the performance of the hydro-pneumatic
spring. Third, the separate damping valve is good for
heat absorption and this helps a heavy load vehicle
constantly run on rough roads. Finally, the separate
damping valve is equipped with a safety valve. When
the wheel bounce speed exceeds the limit, the safety
valve will open to prevent pressure from increasing too
high and damage the hydro pneumatic spring. The
inner safety valve can also prevent a large force caused
by road roughness from transferring to the body
through the suspension, so that the buffering capacity
of the suspension can be fully used [6].

Fp ~{p1 {p2 Ah ,

where Ah is the sum of these three gaps.

Design requirements

The hydro pneumatic suspension addressed in the paper

is used on a heavy off-road vehicle. Thus, some unique
requirements must be met. First, the maximum flowrate
should be more than 150 l/min while the column should
be small. Second, the damping valve has to work with a
backpressure of 7 MPa or more, which is quite different
from common damping valves widely used in shock
absorbers. The unique structure is used to meet the
requirements as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

The shapes of A1, A2, A3 and A4 are shown in Fig. 2.

Equitation (1) can be rewritten as Eq. (2):

Fig. 2

Shapes of A1, A2, A3, and A4

Because (p1 2 p2) . 0, the total fluid force applied on

the valve core is leftwards. is the stiffness of the spring
and is the distance between and. If Fp . 2ks, the safety
valve will open (the safety valve is combined with the
damping valve) as shown in Fig 3. If the flow direction is
reverse, the principle is the same. The flow section can be
maximal with this type of structure when the whole
damping valve column is given. The large flow section
can decrease the damage caused by the impact from road
roughness. The pressure difference between the entrance
and outlet is determined by vehicle parameters. The
diameter of the hydro pneumatic spring main piston and
Ah are determined by suspension parameters. Because Ah
is relatively much smaller compared with A1, a coil spring
with very low stiffness can meet the requirement. The low
stiffness coil spring only occupies a small column that
makes the damping valve more compact.

Structure of damper valve

Principle of work

As shown in Fig. 1, the damping force will be generated

by the oil flowing through the orifice in the middle of the
valve core. The entrance pressure is p1, and the outlet
pressure is p2, and the positive direction is rightwards.
The force applied on the valve core is as follows:
Fp ~p1 A3 {p1 A1 {p2 A4 zp2 A3 ,
where the areas of A1 and A2 are full circles.

Fig. 3

Direction of flow when the safety valve opens

5 Determination of damping valve parameters

The damping valve is used on an independent suspension
and the load on each wheel is almost the same. Thus, the
suspension can be simplified as a 2-DOF linear model as

Damping valve for vehicle hydro pneumatic suspension

99

shown in Fig. 4. The system equation can be written as

follows:


mszs zc(_zs {_zu )zk(zs {zu )~0
, 3
_
muzu zc(_zu {_zs )zk(zu {zs )zct (_zu {q)zk
t (zu {q)~0
where the sprung mass can be obtained from Eq. (4):
ms ~Ms =N,

where Ms is the sprung mass of the whole vehicle, N is the

number of wheels, and mu is the unsprung mass that
includes the mass of the wheel and linkage of the
suspension. The suspension stiffness is determined by the
suspension space. If the suspension static travel is fs, then
k~ms g=fs ,

where kt and ct are the tire stiffness and tire damping,

respectively. All these data can be obtained from a wheel
manufacturer. Because the tire used in a tracked vehicle is
solid rubber, the deflection of the tire is slight. Thus, the
damping of the tire has few effects on the calculation
result and will be neglected in this paper.

c~2fs

p
kms :

Using Eq. (8), the linear suspension damping can be

obtained. Because the damping force is produced with
the thin wall orifice throttle, the real suspension damping
is nonlinear. To use the optimal linear suspension
damping worked out above, the real suspension damping
has to be linearized. The linearization is based on force
equivalence to determine the parameters of damping
orifices.
The flow rate through the orifice can be calculated as
follows:
s
2Dp
Q~cq Ak
~Ap s_ ,
9
r
where Dp is the differential pressure between the input
and output, Ak is the area of the orifice, Ap is the area of
the main piston, s_ is the relative velocity between the
piston and cylinder, and cq is the flow coefficient. For a
thin wall orifice, cq 5 0.62. Then, Dp can be expressed as:


r Ap 2 2
Dp~
10
s_ :
2 cq :Ak
The relationship of the damping force applied on the
actuating cylinder and the relative velocity above can be
expressed as follows:
rA3p s_ 2
FD ~DpAp ~ 2 2 ~B_s2 :
11
2cq Ak
Because the damping force produced by the thin wall
orifice is proportional to the square of the relative
velocity, the difference of the real damping force and its
equivalence linear value can thus be obtained from
Eq. (12):
DFD ~FD {cD s_ ~B_s2 {cD s_ :

Fig. 4

Two DOF linear suspension model

According to Ref. [6], the optimal suspension damping

ratio can be obtained as follows:
p
1zm
,
fs ~
2r

where
8
s
>
k
>
>
< vs ~
,
ms
>
>
v
>
: r~ u
vs

The velocity range is 0,_so , where s_ o is the minimum

relative velocity for the safety valve opening. To make
the difference minimum, it takes:
s_ o
L(D2 FD )
d_s~0:
13
LcD
0
From Eq. (13), cD can be expressed as:
s_ o
s_ 0
3
B_s d_s~ cD s_ 2 d_s,[
0

s
kt
vu ~
mu :
ms
m~
mu

Because of fs ~ 2pc
, the damping of the suspension
kms
can be worked out:

12

3
3
3r Ap
cD ~ B_so ~ : 2 2 :s_ o :
4
8 cq A k

Thus, the area of orifice Ak can be obtained:

s
Ap 3rAh s_ o
Ak ~
:
cq
8cD

14

15

100

Mingming DONG, et al.

Three square orifices are adopted to act as the

damping orifice, and their hydraulic diameter can be
calculated by Ref. [7]:
dH ~4:a2 =4:a~a,

16

where a is the side length of each square orifice. Because

p 2
,
Ak ~ dH
4

17

appears wavy due to the throttle characteristics of the

thin wall orifice. This indicates that during the bench
test, some oil flows through the gap between the valve
core and the valve body. The friction between the valve
core and valve body makes the bench test curve unable
to cross the grid origin, and the practice minimum
velocity for the safety valve to open is a little larger than
the expected value.

the length of the side of each square orifice can be

obtained as follows:
 1 
1
Dh Dh 2 3pr_sk 4
a~ p
:
18
2cD
2 3 cq
Figure 2 shows that the actual shape of the orifice
includes a square whose length of the side is and an
arched area. However, from the theory of fluid dynamics,
the two shapes have the same equivalent hydraulic
diameter.
Thus, the minimum pressure difference for the safety
valve to open is as follows:
   
9r Dh 4 s_ k 2
Dpo ~
:
19
2
a
cq
The applied force on the valve core can be calculated
as follows:
Fso ~3Aak :Dpo ,
20
where Aak is the sum of the square and arched area. The
stiffness of the spring can be determined with Fso and
other structural parameters.

Conclusions

Using the parameters obtained from above, the damping

valve is obtained. The theoretic performance curve can
be calculated with these parameters. Figure 5 is the
comparison of the theoretic curve and the bench test
curve, where the solid line stands for the bench test curve
and dashed line stands for the theoretic curve. Figure 5
shows that the bench test curve is close to the theoretic
curve. The most outstanding difference is that a cuspidal
point is on the theoretic curve at the velocity of 0.6 m/s,
and the safety valve will open. Whereas at the velocity of
0.6 m/s, the bench test curve is also smooth. Another
difference is that the bench test curve appears to be
almost like a straight line while the theoretic curve

Fig. 5
curve

Comparison of the theoretic curve and the bench test

References
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and damper system. Journal of Terramechanics, 1998
2. Els P S, Grobbelaar B. Investigation of the time and
temperature dependency of hydro pneumatic suspension
systems. SAE Technical paper, series No. 930265, 1993
3. Els P S, Grobbelaar B. Heat transfer effects on hydro
pneumatic suspension systems. Journal of Terramechanics,
1999
4. Dixon, John C. The shock absorber handbook. Society of
Automotive Engineers, Inc. 400 Commonwealth Drive
Warrendale, Pa. USA, 1999
5. Nigam N C, Narayanan S. Applications of Random
Vibrations. New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House, India, 1994
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and Vehicle Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology,
2003 (in Chinese)
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Press, 1986 (in Chinese)