Analysis of a damped pneumatic spring

Abstract

The complex dynamic stiffness of a damped spring is determined. The damping is produced by transient pressure feedback from an auxiliary tank connected by a capillary to the spring cylinder. From the complex stiffness, the damping and stiffness are determined as functions of excitation frequency. The behavior of a compound spring, consisting of a damped pneumatic spring in parallel with a stiffer linear spring, is also examined. The analysis shows that the damping loss factor depends only on the tank/cylinder volume ratio, and that the capillary dimensions affect only the frequency at which maximum damping occurs. The compound spring is shown to have a maximum loss factor which quickly reaches an asymptotic value as the tank/cylinder volume ratio increases. From this presentation a clearer understanding of the behavior of a damped air spring, and a better sense of how design parameters affect the component's characteristics are obtained.