Finite element analysis of a jounce bumper with negative Poisson’s ratio structure

Jounce bumpers in automotive suspension are key components that can improve the noise, vibration, and harshness performance of entire vehicle. Traditional jounce bumper made of polyurethane usually cannot satisfy the mechanical performances required by noise, vibration, and harshness optimization. In addition, the application of hyperelastic material influenced the efficiency and reliability of numerical calculations of polyurethane jounce bumper. In this paper, an engineering negative Poisson’s ratio structure was introduced and applied on the jounce bumper. The negative Poisson’s ratio jounce bumper can be mainly defined by few structure parameters. The finite element analysis of the negative Poisson’s ratio jounce bumper was conducted applied explicit method. The influences of loading velocity and material densities on computational time and numerical results were researched. The results indicated that enlargements of material densities and loading velocity can improve the computational efficiency and have limited influence on reliability. Furthermore, a negative Poisson’s ratio jounce bumper prototype was manufactured and tested to verify the numerical results. It was proved that the finite element analysis of the negative Poisson’s ratio jounce bumper was reliable both in load–displacement curve and deformation shapes. Compared to the traditional jounce bumper, the negative Poisson’s ratio jounce bumper can achieve similar mechanical behavior but with a smoother load–displacement curve, which is beneficial to the vehicle’s noise, vibration, and harshness performance.