Hello, need help with calculating suspension springs parameters for a tracked mobile chassis. Tracked mobile base would be about 80kg, each track has 4 support wheels, each wheel has a spring, so in total we have 8 wheels and 8 springs. Now the question is how to determine what must be exact parameters for the springs? The goal is to have suspension soft enough to allow fast dampening of terrain geometry and allowing for maximum base stability during all terrain movement at wide range of speeds. What little I managed to find on internet either lacks a detailed description (things like spring stiffness etc.) and/or is for springs from completely different weight category. As far as I understand each spring will need to be roughly weighted at about 10kg stiffness. But there are so many other parameters - it gets confusing very quickly. Where should I start, how to choose the right springs, detailed explanations would be very much appreciated!
Force exerted = (spring constant) x (elongation or contraction)
You’d need to estimate the impact force the robot will encounter, and the total travel you want the spring to compress before exerting the opposite force. Estimating the impact force depends on the motion of the wheel (is it falling, being hit at an angle etc.) and you’ll need to do a force body diagram on the wheel.