Elastic Elements for Damping

I think there's a misunderstanding here....could you link the paper you are referring to...The dual rate springs I am familiar with have a progressive spring rate as the spring is compressed, but it is still used with a damper...

https://www.hypercoils.com/dual-rate-springs/#:~:text=Dual%20Rate%20Coil%2DOver%20Springs&text=The%20Dual%20Rate%20UHT%20Spring,improve%20roll%20control%20during%20cornering.

Sure. The paper is Fossum, P.G.: Servomechanism analysis of a two-rate spring automobile suspension (his Master's thesis for the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, published in 1962), available from: https://archive.org/details/servomechanisman00fosspdf

Looking forward to your insights.

OK I see the discrepancy ...the spring itself is considered a damper...

...There are two physical operations involved - springing and damping. You need

both. Most cars use steel springs for the springing and fluid-filled dampers (also

known as shock absorbers, but that's a misnomer as its actually the springs that

absorb the shocks) for the damping."...

The difference between common language and scientific nomenclature...

Looking more carefully, the author says he modeled and simulated (on an analog computer) a system with and without viscous damping.

Logically, the damping effect produced without an internal damper must be a reduction in the amount of energy input, since an elastic element cannot absorb (permanently) the kinetic energy within the system.

Since the system is an automobile suspension, presumably the "damping" effect is a reduction in the resulting motion of the car caused by the "soft" part of the two-way spring's deflection.

Well the spring does dissipate some energy in the form of heat(enthalpy) I think...but I think the main effect of a shock absorber is a reduction in the speed of spring deflection, the speed of deflection plays a huge role in the amount of energy to be damped...

..."The force required to compress (or expand)

a damper is proportional to the speed at which it is compressed (or expanded),

not the distance."...

If I understand it correctly, it makes sense that dampers (shock absorbers) would be more efficient with softer springs (more deflection) but harder springs would be better to counter the car leaning in corners.

I think we're already there with the magna-ride suspension systems...hard to improve on that...

I was thinking along the lines of sensing and anticipating the disturbance. Adjustments could be made for the upcoming event. Per wheel and both forward and backward. Plus body displacement relative to ground. Even banking. I would want controllers to use field force, instead of mechanical force were ever possible. We don't want wear and replacement parts. Maybe even linear motor/generators and generate power from it. Just set on bumpy for charging.

The electric carriage I think of has a propulsion motor/generator in/for each wheel. Each wheel has a position controller. This controller is not for steering. This controls the vertical position and contact pressure with ground. One could push down a little, right before a bump, (raising that carriage section a little)then lift the wheel out of the way.(falling the section a little) And fly over the bump. Depending on speed and size of pot hole, a similar strategy might work. A cracklely piece of pavement, might only have 2 wheels on the ground at one time.

Inertia levitation. yoyo-ed on 4 wheels.

If we can anticipate the disturbance far enough ahead, preset the carriage inertia for it, we might reduce it drastically. An updated surface gradient might be downloaded when we turn onto a new road. These EVs can talk to one another.

Well the suspension plays an important role to keep the tires in contact with the pavement as much as possible for control, now if you want perfectly smooth ride in the passenger compartment, I would look at camera stabilizer methods...

It <...is generally known among...> electronic engineers. Google low-pass and high-pass filters for more. The concepts do translate into the mechanical world.