![]() ![]() Holes perforate the piston and allow fluid to leak through as the piston moves up and down in the pressure tube. When the car wheel encounters a bump in the road and causes the spring to coil and uncoil, the energy of the spring is transferred to the shock absorber through the upper mount, down through the piston rod and into the piston. The reserve tube stores excess hydraulic fluid. The inner tube is known as the pressure tube, and the outer tube is known as the reserve tube. In a twin-tube design, one of the most common types of shock absorbers, the upper mount is connected to a piston rod, which in turn is connected to a piston, which in turn sits in a tube filled with hydraulic fluid. The upper mount of the shock connects to the frame (i.e., the sprung weight), while the lower mount connects to the axle, near the wheel (i.e., the unsprung weight). Other structures, known as dampers, are required to do this.Ī shock absorber is basically an oil pump placed between the frame of the car and the wheels. Why? Because springs are great at absorbing energy, but not so good at dissipating it. And to make matters more complex, springs alone can't provide a perfectly smooth ride. So, while springs by themselves seem like simple devices, designing and implementing them on a car to balance passenger comfort with handling is a complex task. Tightly sprung cars, such as sports cars (think Mazda Miata MX-5), are less forgiving on bumpy roads, but they minimize body motion well, which means they can be driven aggressively, even around corners. Loosely sprung cars, such as luxury cars (think Mercedes-Benz C-Class), can swallow bumps and provide a super-smooth ride however, such a car is prone to dive and squat during braking and acceleration and tends to experience body sway or roll during cornering. The stiffness of the springs affects how the sprung mass responds while the car is being driven. The sprung mass is the mass of the vehicle supported on the springs, while the unsprung mass is loosely defined as the mass between the road and the suspension springs. Air springs from this era were made from air-filled, leather diaphragms, much like a bellows they were replaced with molded-rubber air springs in the 1930s.īased on where springs are located on a car - i.e., between the wheels and the frame - engineers often find it convenient to talk about the sprung mass and the unsprung mass. The technology is used in many luxury vehicles today, but the concept is actually more than a century old and could be found on horse-drawn buggies. Air springs consist of a cylindrical chamber of air positioned between the wheel and the car's body, and use the compressive qualities of air to absorb wheel vibrations.European carmakers used this system extensively, as did Packard and Chrysler in the United States, through the 1950s and 1960s. The torsion bar then twists along its axis to provide the spring force. When the wheel hits a bump, vertical motion is transferred to the wishbone and then, through the levering action, to the torsion bar. The other end is attached to a wishbone, which acts like a lever that moves perpendicular to the torsion bar. This is how they work: One end of a bar is anchored to the vehicle frame. Torsion bars use the twisting properties of a steel bar to provide coil-spring-like performance. ![]() They are still used today on most trucks and heavy-duty vehicles. Leaf springs were first used on horse-drawn carriages and were found on most American automobiles until 1985. Leaf springs consist of several layers of metal (called "leaves") bound together to act as a single unit.Coil springs compress and expand to absorb the motion of the wheels. Coil springs are the most common type of spring and is, in essence, a heavy-duty torsion bar coiled around an axis. ![]()
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