A Study of Vibration Control of Truck Seat Suspension
System
A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of
Engineering
Yuli Zhao
Bachelor of Automotive Engineering & Mechanical Engineering, RMIT University, 2014
School of Engineering
College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths
RMIT University
September 2020
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Declaration
I certify that except where due acknowledgment has been made, the work is that of the author
alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any
other academic award; the content of the thesis is the result of work which has been carried
out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial
work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures
and guidelines have been followed. I acknowledge the support I have received for my
research through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program
Scholarship
Yuli Zhao
29th September 2020
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Acknowledgments
First of all, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Xu Wang,
for his constant encouragement and patience with me for these years. He has walked me
through all the stages of my Master degree study and he also has contributed to this thesis
with a major impact. Thank you as well for those wise advice, for my research life.
Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my second supervisor Associate
Professor Yongmin Zhong, for his support and suggestions.
I am also deeply indebted to Mr. Huw James, for his assistance in the NVH Lab and workshop.
I also want to thank Mrs. Mary Tomlinson for her administration related helps.
Special thanks should go to those people in my office for their help in academics and life. To
all my colleagues: Ran Zhang, Zhenwei Liu, Han Xiao, Latih Egab, Elie Al Shami, and
Linchuan Guo.
Last, my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great
confidence in me all through these years.
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Statement of impact from COVID19
Due to the impact of COVID19, Melbourne went into lockdown from March 2020. Due to
the school blockade, my scheduled experiments cannot be completed. I cannot use laboratory
equipment to verify the mathematical model, and at the same time, I cannot provide training
data for the artificial neural network model. Due to the closure of the workshop, the active
suspension system for the truck seat cannot be manufactured, even if the related motor,
gearbox, belts, and pulleys have been purchased. All these have had a significant impact on
my research work.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................... 12
Nomenclature ............................................................................................................................................ 14
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 17
1 Literature Review .............................................................................................................................. 19
1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 19
1.2 Seat Systems with Active Suspension ......................................................................................... 27
1.2.1 Experiments with Prototypes............................................................................................ 27
1.2.2 Simulation ........................................................................................................................ 48
1.3 Artificial Neural Network Control .............................................................................................. 61
1.4 Biodynamic Modelling ................................................................................................................ 63
1.5 Identified Research Gaps, Research Questions, and New Directions ......................................... 64
1.6 List of publications ...................................................................................................................... 66
2 Vibration Comfort Investigation Using a Motion Platform. ............................................................. 68
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 68
2.2 Experiment design and data collection ........................................................................................ 69
2.3 SEAT value .................................................................................................................................. 73
2.4 ISO standard acceleration calculation ......................................................................................... 73
2.5 Results and discussion ................................................................................................................. 75
2.6 Error analysis .............................................................................................................................. 77
2.7 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 78
3 5-DOF Bio-Dynamic Model and its Sensitivity Analysis. ................................................................ 80
3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 80
3.2 Analytical simulation model........................................................................................................ 82
3.3 Experiment measurement ............................................................................................................ 89
3.3.1 Test vehicle and instrumentation ...................................................................................... 89
3.3.2 Data acquisition and recording ......................................................................................... 90
