Prototype Implementation of Semi-Active Road-Friendly Truck Suspensions

The paper deals with the description of realised implementations of semi-active road-friendly truck suspensions and with the description of provided experiments. The possible consequences in form of economical feasibility of serial practical implementations are included. There have been materialised two implementations. The first one was within the EU funded Copernicus project SADTS - Semi-Active Damping of Truck Suspsension and Its Influence on Driver and Road Loads in 1997-98. The second one was within the mutual workshop of IKA RWTH, DLR, CTU Moderne Nutzfahrzeug-Fahrwerke, Potential zur Ladegut- und Fahrbahnschonung in Aachen in March 2000. the first implementation was on the SKODA-LIAZ platform truck and the second one was on the MAN truck-tractor with semi-trailer. Both implementations have again proved that the semi-active suspension is capable to decrease the dynamic part of road-tyre forces and to reduce road damage. The semi-active road-friendly suspension can serve for the reduction of road damage or for the allowed increase of useful truck payload. The economical feasibility of both variants is shortly provided