Simulation and Investigation of the Influence of Pressure on the Stiffness of Air Spring Suspension in Passenger Vehicles Using ABAQUS

Air springs have been widely used in commercial vehicles as automobiles owing to many advantages. The stiffness characteristic of the air spring is used to evaluate the quality of the suspension system of the vehicle. Almost research related to the stiffness of air spring in the past were carried out through experiments. For this reason, applying numerical software in the analysis to investigate the stiffness of the air spring in the passenger vehicle is supposed to bring many positive effects. In this study, the stiffness of the air spring in a passenger vehicle subjected to undergoing static load over different pressures was studied. The findings can be used to improve the design and enhance the productivity of suspension systems in the future. The axisymmetric model of an air spring is used to simulate based on the Finite Element Method in the numerical software ABAQUS. The nonlinear material defined by the vulcanization of rubber and cord was used for simulation. The stiffness characteristics of the bellow-type of air spring based on different pressures also were obtained. The findings showed the relationship between the pressure factor and the stiffness of an air spring in a vehicle.