Performance Analysis of Giant Magnetostrictive Actuator and Its Application on Active Suspension of Train

Abstract

Active suspension is considered to be a good way to improve the ride comfort of high-speed trains. According to the output index requirements of train’s active suspension, a giant magnetostrictive actuator(GMA) is proposed. This is mainly because giant magnetostrictive materials(GMM) has the characteristics of fast response, large output force and high energy conversion rate. It is verified by experiments that the output force is proportional to the excitation current. It is found in the experiment that the excitation frequency should be greater than 120Hz to obtain a stable output force, and it is also found that preload and excitation frequency will affect response time. On the basis of experiments, a 2-DOF physical and mathematical model of the vertical quarter train is built. An MPC algorithm is designed to control GMA active suspension. Through simulation analysis, the proposed control algorithm is compared with passive suspension and active suspension based on PID control algorithm. Both theory and practice show that the proposed control algorithm is effective.

Keywords:
train; active suspension; GMA; response time; MPC algorithm

Graphical Abstract