Quote:
Originally Posted by BMWCali
What is active dampeners? Is there any doc or website about BMW's specific active dampeners? Is this like Range Rover Evoque's Magna-ride system where the suspension adjusts automatically 1,000 times per second based on your driving and conditions of the road?
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The idea is the same, making dampers that can alter how they control the springs.
BMW does not use "magnetic fluid" to control the fluids viscosity, and thus how that fluid travels through the 'compression' and 'rebound' circuits to control the spring.
That system was developed by Delphi-GM and is used in some GM cars, Audi, Acura, and Ferrari.
Land Rover is the first to use it for off-road. Pretty cool.
BMW is using electronically controlled circuit valves that can change the opening of the valves, thus controlling how the damper fluid flows.
Fluid flow is used to absorb the springs energy.
When the car hits a bump, the springs compress in order to absorb that energy. The damper is there to control the spring. If there were no damper, then the spring would compress and then recoil sending the energy back into the chassis, the spring expands, then the car compress's the spring again, and the cycle repeats until the spring finally rests, unless it hits another bump before that, and the pogo'ing starts all over again.
The damper absorbs the springs energy and uses fluid to dissipate it.
Controlling how the fluid flows helps to control the compression and rebound (uncompression) of the spring.
There are different types of bumps and impacts, some are sharp and short, some are softer but longer. This requires a different fluid flow by which to control how the spring is compressing and rebounding.
By controlling the valves opening, that controls how the damper/shock fluid controls the spring.
The magnetic system using and electric voltage to alter the magnetic metal particles in the fluid to orient themselves in different ways, which changes the fluids viscosity. By altering the voltage it can change the viscosity in milliseconds to adapt to the road condition.
So BMW is using valves to control how easily or not the fluid can flow within the damper.
The magnetic damper alters the actual fluids viscosity to control how it flows through it's valves.
It's "adaptive" so it's always on and continuously changing to adapt to the changing road conditions.