Simulation of an Active Front Bumper System for Frontal Impact Protection

Abstract

This paper concerns the effectiveness of an active front bumper system to reduce the unwanted jerking of the vehicle during collision using magnetorheological (MR) damper. The mathematical model is developed using MATLAB 7.0 to simulate a collision between pendulum and the vehicle installed with an active front bumper system. This study also presents the performance characteristics of a MR damper for controllable bumper in the vehicle system. One of a promising candidate is the MR fluid undergoes significant instantaneous reversible changes in material characteristics when subjected to a magnetic field. The proposed damper is integrated with bellows to induce the flow motion which is operated under flow mode. The parameter is subjected to change based on situation of collision between pendulum and the vehicle model. For the situations which light and medium collision occurred, the mass of pendulum will be changed to 1/5 and 3/5 of vehicle mass respectively. For heavy collision, the mass of pendulum is set similar to the vehicle model mass. Acceleration and jerking of the vehicle model using passive damper and proposed skyhook controller system are investigated through simulation for light, medium and heavy collision. Simulation results show that an active front bumper system using skyhook controller is more effective compared to passive damper system during collision.