Gas Spring-Damper Assembly With Spiral Passage for Compact Damping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Gas spring and gas damper assemblies face challenges in balancing performance with size and space limitations, often resulting in reduced damping performance due to limited volume of pressurized gas or its remote location, which affects vehicle suspension systems.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates elongated gas damping passages that provide pressurized gas damping by fluidically connecting the spring chamber with damping chambers, optimizing gas flow to dissipate kinetic energy across a range of frequencies, thereby enhancing damping performance without additional damping members.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Volume of moving object
If the volume of pressurized gas is reduced to meet space limitations, then the device size is reduced, but the damping performance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The damping chamber is segmented into a first damping chamber portion and a second damping chamber portion by a damper piston, creating separate zones for gas compression and expansion. This segmentation allows the pressurized gas to perform work in both directions (jounce and rebound) without requiring a large volume, as the gas is reused in a cyclic manner between the two portions.
Solution Approach 2:
The gas spring assembly is nested within the gas damper assembly, with the spring chamber positioned concentrically within the damping chamber. This nested configuration maximizes the use of available space, allowing the pressurized gas to serve dual purposes in both the spring and damping functions without increasing overall device volume.
2Ease of operation
If the pressurized gas is located remotely from the damping mechanism, then the assembly layout is simplified, but the damping performance deteriorates due to insufficient gas flow
Solution Approach 1:
An elongated passage is provided that serves as an intermediary conduit, fluidically connecting the spring chamber to the first damping chamber portion. This passage ensures sufficient gas flow and velocity between chambers while allowing flexible assembly layout, as the passage can be configured to suit manufacturing and assembly requirements without compromising damping performance.
3Reliability
If conventional damping members are added to improve damping performance, then the damping performance is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The gas spring and gas damper functions are merged into a single integrated assembly. The pressurized gas serves dual purposes: providing spring force through the gas spring and providing damping force through the gas damper mechanism. This eliminates the need for separate damping members, reducing device complexity while maintaining effective damping performance across multiple frequency ranges.
Solution Approach 2:
The pressurized gas system is designed to perform multiple functions simultaneously. The same pressurized gas volume provides both suspension spring force and vibration damping, making the system multi-functional. The damper piston and passages are designed to extract damping energy from the pressurized gas without interfering with the spring function, achieving universality in a compact form.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This configuration achieves improved damping performance by ensuring sufficient gas flow and velocity, targeting specific frequency ranges, such as 1-4 Hz, 8-12 Hz, and 15-25 Hz, to provide effective vibration dissipation and ride comfort in vehicle suspension systems.
Implementation Method 1
An elongated gas damping passage is provided that extends between and fluidically connects the spring chamber and one or more damping chambers or damping chamber portions. The elongated gas damping passage is dimensioned and configured to provide pressurized gas damping for a predetermined range of frequencies.
Implementation Method 2
Generally, there is some resistance to the movement of pressurized gas through these passages or ports, and this resistance acts to dissipate energy associated with the gas spring portion and thereby provide some measure of damping.
Data Source
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AI summary
Gas spring and gas damper assemblies include a gas spring and a gas damper. The gas spring includes a flexible spring member with opposing end members secured thereto and at least partially defining a spring chamber. An elongated damping passage having a spiral configuration extends through one of the end members. The gas damper includes a damper housing that at least partially defines a damping chamber in fluid communication with the spring chamber through the elongated damping passage. A damper piston assembly is received within the damping chamber and secured to the other of the end members. Suspension systems and methods are also included.