Abstract
The shock absorber is one of the most complex parts of the vehicle suspension system. It plays a major role in vehicle ride and handling development. In this paper the quarter car test rig, with external drum road surface input, has been designed and developed. The test rig was designed and developed to include any suspension system components. A test rig is built to measure the body acceleration; suspension working space and dynamic tyre load with different types of shock absorber to improve ride comfort. The external drum used to exciting the test rig and also the actual tyre is used. Two linear variable displacement transducers (LVDT) are used to measure the suspension working space and dynamic tyre distance. Accelerometer type 4370 B&K is used to measuring the vertical body acceleration. Computer software has to be designed for data acquisition system. Furthermore, to estimate sampling rates and computational loop times. Seven types of shock absorbers are used to study the performance of suspension system. Then, the performance of the passive suspension system with different types of shock absorber is experimentally examined using a quarter car test rig. Moreover, regarding the theoretical model of the passive suspension system developed and predicted results are compared with the experimental measurements on a quarter car test rig. The results of the study contribute to the development of objective methods for vehicle ride development.