Research on damping and energy recovery characteristics of a novel mechanical-electrical-hydraulic regenerative suspension system

The suspension vibration energy generated by high-speed tracked vehicles under off-road driving conditions is huge, but the power density of existing regenerative suspension cannot meet its kilowatt level energy recovery needs. Therefore, a novel mechanical-electrical-hydraulic regenerative suspension system (MEH-RSS) is proposed with high-power density in this paper. The hydraulic motor-generator (HMG) is used as the core component of hydraulic-electrical energy conversion to realize the conversion and recovery of high-power energy in limited space. Specifically, the bidirectional energy management control strategy is studied based on the energy conversion transfer path, and the fluid-solid-thermal-magnetic multiphysics coupling simulation model is established to analyze the influence of external excitation characteristics on the damping and energy recovery characteristics. The test proves that the energy recovery module can effectively realize energy conversion and recovery, and the maximum hydraulic-electrical energy conversion efficiency can reach 40.4% under the external resistance of 5 Ω. Further, the simulation results show that the MEH-RSS can achieve kilowatt level energy recovery with high efficiency under different road excitation characteristics, and the energy recovery characteristics are superior. The analysis also indicates that the damping force can be adjusted by changing the external resistance, which is the basis of semi-active control.