Profile - Dr Simos Evangelou

Dr Simos Evangelou has been working with Dr Daniele Dini (Mechanical Engineering) to develop a new suspension system for road vehicles.

What are you working on?

The suspension system we’ve developed combines the performance improvements of fully active systems with the safety and economy of passive systems. A passive system is what you would find in most road vehicles. An active system includes components which react to an external stimulus and can alter certain parts of the suspension to react favourably to road conditions.

How is your system different?

Because of the nature of a passive system, car suspension systems must be built to work in most conditions, which can lead to shortcomings such as understeering. An active suspension system can, however, react to external information and correct these shortcomings to deliver improved handling, comfort and safety. We have sought to develop a system that retains most of these benefits, while reducing the extent of the active components and, thus, the complexity, cost and maintenance requirements.

How does it work?

 

Dr Evangelou’s suspension system

Our system uses an electrical mechanism called an actuator to vary the geometry of the passive element of the suspension system. According to the studies we’ve done, this mechanism can be smaller than in fully active systems, which means there is a lower power requirement. In addition, we can integrate the system with current passive suspension systems. This reduces the cost and complexity of the design and means that the system is fail-safe, which will offer a more attractive proposition to vehicle manufacturers than a fully active system. We are in the process of developing prototypes to demonstrate our results.

— Gavin Reed, Imperial Innovation