Variable Wheel Rate for Active Suspension

[ej240sx]

I have been researching active suspension over the past few months and realized no one has made a variable leverage ratio design. It looks like several academic papers have been published saying it should work in theory, but as far as I can tell it has never been done.

I was imagining a bell crank where the shock location could move along an arc towards/away from the pivot point in order to not change ride height. I am by no means a suspension expert but was thinking this would change damping and spring rate at the same time and could have other actuators to compensate for ride height and travel if needed.

Has anyone heard of this take on active suspension or what do you think would be some of the pros/cons of this?

[djsilver]

I have been researching active suspension over the past few months and realized no one has made a variable leverage ratio design. It looks like several academic papers have been published saying it should work in theory, but as far as I can tell it has never been done.

I was imagining a bell crank where the shock location could move along an arc towards/away from the pivot point in order to not change ride height. I am by no means a suspension expert but was thinking this would change damping and spring rate at the same time and could have other actuators to compensate for ride height and travel if needed.

Has anyone heard of this take on active suspension or what do you think would be some of the pros/cons of this?

Your question has been posted for a month and no one has answered, so I'll take a shot; Huh?

I you look at stuff like Nautilus fitness equipment, they do that. Throttle bodies also sometimes have eccentric pulleys to give you a "kick" when taking off, to make you think you have "moar power" ;-)

With the use of cables and an eccentric pulley, you can vary your damping at different points in the travel of the piston. Just remember that levers moving around a pivot also vary the ratio, so you have to account for both.

[croustibat]

Or you could buy a citroen C5 (hydractive 3+) or C6 (hydractive 4) with the latest hydractive development and be done with it. Or Get an older xantia hydractive 2 activa.
Hydractive 2 activa is not exactly a fully active system, but it does the job of keeping the car perfectly flat all the time.

The best thing about hydropneumatic suspension is there is no need for variable leverage ratio, as the equivalent of the spring is already variable.

The latest mc laren p1 suspension is based on this.