An investigation on the hysteresis characteristics of an automotive air spring

Hysteresis is one of major properties of air spring during its compression and rebounding sequences. This study shows hysteresis property of air spring theoretically and experimentally. At first, the theoretical model of the air spring was developed, considering the factor of heat exchange. And then experiments of force responses with displacement excitation signal of various frequencies were implemented. The simulations by using obtained model were performed to compare with experimental results. The results show that simulation results are close to experiment in low excitation frequency from 1 Hz to 0.1 Hz, but there exits some difference between them in very low excitation frequency (quasistatic process).