While air suspension is a popular feature among larger EVs and luxury vehicles, models in smaller segments – including compact EVs – often miss the benefits of ride height adjustment and suspension leveling. Vibracoustic’s engineers have developed new cost-effective and easy-to-implement system offers this functionality for both front and rear axle applications. The Smart Leveling System can be used to integrate a range of features into volume vehicles, including improved comfort and customizability, EV battery cooling, energy efficiency and safer trunk loading and unloading. It can also be used to adjust ground clearance, optimizing for speed bumps and driveways, as well as for more aerodynamically efficient high-speed motorway driving.
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Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) optimizations are often required late in the development process. However, more and more OEMs consider addressing these issues much earlier to avoid late, difficult and costly changes. We support these efforts with our axle test bench, which allows to test, benchmark and fine-tune complete axle systems in an early development phase as well as to troubleshoot in any stage of the vehicle lifecycle. Due to our NVH expertise we know how our products behave and react in an axle subsystem as well as in the full vehicle. With over 80 axles benchmarked, we have a unique expertise and are able to derive NVH market trends from these findings.
Engine and motor mounts carry the static and dynamic loads and isolate vibrations from low to high frequencies. To achieve the best NVH performance, the mounts and torque rods need to be precisely tuned and adapted to the specific needs of the manufacturer. With Vibracoustics proprietary motor mount system simulation, we can configure, simulate, benchmark and fine-tune the interaction of the different system components, with each other and with the surrounding vehicle structures, without changing the DNA of the specific vehicle. Furthermore, we can verify the results on our own vehicle and component test rigs.
Active motor mount systems take it one step further and use specially generated counter-vibrations to neutralize the incoming vibrations. Vibracoustic supports light vehicle manufacturers in developing, producing and fine-tuning these active motor mount systems. This includes the development and programming of the base and application software as well as providing the auxiliary hardware like sensors and actuators.
With air suspension applications growing in popularity among electric vehicles (EV) and at the same time, electric vehicles becoming more affordable, car manufacturers are facing new NVH challenges. One example is the significant demand for a more simple and affordable leveling system – to make this premium feature available for smaller vehicle segments. Vibracoustic has developed an all-new hydro leveling system that brings the benefits of ride height adjustability to new market segments. The patent-pending hydro leveling system can be tailored to front or rear-axle applications and is a cost-effective solution for ride height adjustability of lower segment cars including smaller EVs. Furthermore, it can also help increase the energy efficiency of EVs and therewith allow a smaller battery pack while maintaining the same range.
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The fully operational prototype of a hydro leveling system delivers 40 mm of travel at wheel but can be adjusted for each vehicle. When used as rear-axle application it can compensate for trunk loading, deliver improved comfort, and maintain ground clearance for fully loaded vehicles, adjust the angle of stall for improved battery cooling of EVs, or provide a more comfortable loading / unloading position. Applied to both, front and rear-axle, it can additionally adjust ground clearance for speed bumps and driveways or lower the vehicle for high-speed driving to reduce drag and increase range.
Currently, air springs and complex actuators are the only established automotive leveling solutions. While extremely effective, they are typically too complex and costly to fit to non-luxury or smaller vehicles. The hydro leveling will enable car manufacturers to include single or dual-axle variable ride height systems at significantly lower cost, backed by the rigorous engineering and testing processes of a global leader in NVH and air spring systems. Vibracoustic is already discussing upcoming applications with several car manufacturers, including all-new EV models.
The core of the hydro leveling system is a hydraulic actuator. The design of the actuator is based on the air spring technology and deep knowledge on rubber to metal components of Vibracoustic. The hydro leveling system is controlled by a dedicated electronic control unit (ECU) including software developed by Vibracoustic. It incorporates height sensors and a powerpack (pump, tank, valves). The system offers a leveling speed of 10 mm per second in two-corner applications, operating when the vehicle is static. As a next-generation suspension system, the hydro leveling prototype system has been thoroughly tested for durability and functionality while integrated into a popular European C-segment vehicle. Leveraging its ‘whole system’ approach to product development, the Vibracoustic engineering team was able to ensure excellent NVH performance.
Testing highlighted that the hydro leveling system in a C-segment vehicle substantially improved ride and comfort metrics of a loaded vehicle. Tested under rough road conditions of different amplitudes and frequencies, the system offered large comfort improvements at low frequencies of up to 15 Hz due to significant reductions in road-induced excitations.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website Vibracoustic Air Springs.