In this study, we investigate nonlinear characteristics of an air suspension with a slit restriction as flow paths between a cylinder and an auxiliary tank. The use of the slit restriction increases the internal volume of the air suspension, reduces support stiffness, and provides damping effects due to flow resistance. Unlike conventional orifice restrictions, the slit restriction maintain damping performance even under small-amplitude vibrations due to their negligible amplitude dependence. Previous studies have shown that, when the amplitude is sufficiently small, the air suspension with slit restrictions can be approximated by a linear three-element model. However, cases involving large vibration amplitudes, where the system’s nonlinearity becomes significant, have not been rigorously compared with analytical or experimental results. To address this gap, this study aims to clarify the nonlinear restoring and damping characteristics of the air suspension with slit restrictions and to determine the range of conditions under which the system can be treated as linear.
INOUE et al. (Wed,) studied this question.