Improvement of the Vehicle Seat Suspension System Incorporating the Mechatronic Inerter Element

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper studied the use of mechatronic inerter to enhance the vibration isolation of vehicle seat suspensions. This paper is well-written and clear, and the topic is value for scientific study. Some comments/suggestions are as follows:

1.The language of the work requires substantial improvement. And the names of scholars and the years in the introduction section need to be stated so that the timeline can be better understood. 

2.Explain how the parameters of the complete vehicle model in Table 1 were selected 

3. Please specify the theoretical basis of using external electrical network to simulate mechanical network.

4. Please explain the optimization algorithm process.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

This paper investigates the problem of optimizing the design of the vehicle seat suspension system incorporating the mechatronic inerter element.

The paper presents several strengths, of which it is listed:

1. The topic is interesting, and the paper is comprehensive and well written.

2. The novelty of the study is clearly highlighted:  the investigation of the performance improvement of applying inerter elements to vehicle seat suspension.

3. The results of the study seem coherent and described with sufficient clarity. These will contribute to a new approach to the vehicle seat suspension design.

4. Based on the results obtained generic and fundamental conclusions are drawn.

5. There are clear prospects for further research in this direction.

Consequently, the paper may be recommended for publication in World Electric Vehicle Journal. But, before publication, the text and English language in the paper must checked, edited, and corrected.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

This paper studies the problem of modeling the mechatronic inerter seat suspension. The topic could be of interest to the readers of the journal. The study is important in its applied sense. At first glance, the manuscript is interesting. This paper explores the implementation study with a new and real perspective on the current scientific problem.

Some comments are listed below.

1. The introduction should be extended with the most important findings. The actuality and novelty of the current paper must be clarified.  

2. What research gap did you find from previous researchers in your field? Mention it at the end of the Introduction section. It will improve the strength of the article.

3. What are the weaknesses of the proposed mechatronic inerter seat suspension? What are the perspectives?

4. Why are driver mass and inertial characteristics not included in the model?

5.  The reason why the speed of 30,50,70  km/h was chosen for the investigation should be motivated. And why these particular cases?

6. A more detailed explanation is needed to clarify why the artificial Class C road was chosen. There should be a reference from the literature to ISO 8608: 2016 (https://www.iso.org/standard/71202.html).

7.     Have you validated the modeling with real experiments? Natural experiments would make the results much more reliable.

8.     The results of this paper are very general. The conclusions should be revised and expanded and the most important findings should be presented.  If the authors' conclusions provided a more interesting contribution to the motivation for this study and some interesting open questions for future research, it would encourage the reader to take more interest in the topic.

Overall, my opinion is positive, and I would suggest that the author continues the work.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The authors presented an interesting idea in their manuscript - the improvement of vehicle driver comfort level by adding a special mechatronic system to seat suspension. Nevertheless, I noticed some issues to be improved before publishing.

1. Seat suspensions are typically used for trucks, not for passenger vehicles and in the beginning, authors point to commercial vehicles but from model parameters, it looks like a passenger vehicle. Authors should clarify this point

2. There are a lot of unclear cases about vehicle model its parameters and modeling: why authors decided not to include damping of the tires which plays an essential role?  Why simulation was done with an empty seat, how mass of the driver will affect the proposed system How authors defined the remaining model parameters did they correspond to any real model? What was the excitation signal for the model, was it the same for both wheels or was it different?

3. Authors state that modeled and optimized system could be realized by passively loading an electric system and even provide schemes and values for resistors and capacitors, but there are no explanations of how they were defined. More to say there provided no characteristics of inerter, how is related its amplitude, frequency, and electric power?

4 There are some typing and style errors, the whole manuscript should be carefully revised.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have improved the article and answered most of the questions. Congratulations to the authors.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The authors introduced only minor changes and provided a very formal answer to the given comments, the majority of question from the previous review remains not answered properly, and the article is not improved enough.

1. Question about including tire damping in the model remains open. Authors should make the changes or provide a very clear and reasonable explanation of why they decided to exclude that element.

2. Sources of the parameters for the model, authors refer to some commercial models but not providing references.

3. Theory of electromechanical similarities in modeling is not new, it is known a lot of years ago.

4. Question about the physical and mechanical characteristics of inerter remains ignored, the authors should provide more details about that.

5. Also author should provide reasoning why they modeled an unloaded car (not taking into account the mass of driver) which brings simulation to the field of not existing real cases?

 

 

 

 

Author Response

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Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have taken into account some major remarks, and the quality of the article seems to be improved to an acceptable level.

The newly added sentence in line 77 seems as a draft version. It should be rephrased and improved.

Author Response

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