CFD analysis of damping characteristics of a hydraulic damper through geometrical modification and velocity variation

Shock absorbers or hydraulic dampers are a power dissipating device and fluid flow is governed through predefined passages. This fluid flow passages are responsible for variation in the damping or hydraulic characteristics in terms of damping force with respect to velocity. The piston inside the damper has a various orifice or piston valves that cause different flow losses. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method is used to validate a previous study and investigate a modified model. The previous study has shown the numerical and experimental damping characteristics of a rear side two-wheeler automobile mono tube damper for different number of orifices in the piston which are two, six and ten orifices opening. CFD analysis is carried out for different number of orifices in the piston to validate the damping characteristics of a shock absorber. The throttling velocities are changing. A total of 48 simulations are done, simulations are compared with the previous numerical and experimental results and have shown agreement. A modified model is proposed, and it is damping characteristics are studied.