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SUSPENSION SYSTEM When people think of automobile performance, they normally think of horsepower, torque and zero-to-60 acceleration. But all of the power generated by a piston engine is useless if the driver can't control the car. That's why automobile engineers turned their attention to the suspension system almost as soon as they had mastered the four-stroke internal combustion engine. The job of a car suspension is to maximize the friction between the tires and the road surface, to provide steering stability with good handling and to ensure the comfort of the passengers. In this article, we'll explore how car suspensions work, how they've evolved over the years and where the design of suspensions is headed in the future.

If a road were perfectly flat, with no irregularities, suspensions wouldn't be necessary. But roads are far from flat. Even freshly paved highways have subtle imperfections that can interact with the wheels of a car. It's these imperfections that apply forces to the wheels. According to Newton's laws of motion, all forces have both magnitude and direction. A bump in the road causes the wheel to move up and down perpendicular to the road surface. The magnitude, of course, depends on whether the wheel is striking a giant bump or a tiny speck. Either way, the car wheel experiences a vertical acceleration as it passes over an imperfection. Without an intervening structure, all of wheel's vertical energy is transferred to the frame, which moves in the same direction. In such a situation, the wheels can lose contact with the road completely. Then, under the downward force of gravity, the wheels can slam back into the road surface. What you need is a system that will absorb the energy of the vertically accelerated wheel, allowing the frame and body to ride undisturbed while the wheels follow bumps in the road.

The study of the forces at work on a moving car is called vehicle dynamics, and you need to understand some of these concepts in order to appreciate why a suspension is necessary in the first place. Most automobile engineers consider the dynamics of a moving car from two perspectives:

• •

Ride - a car's ability to smooth out a bumpy road Handling - a car's ability to safely accelerate, brake and corner

These two characteristics can be further described in three important principles road isolation, road holding and cornering. The table below describes these principles and how engineers attempt to solve the challenges unique to each. Principle Definition Goal Solution Absorb energy from road bumps and dissipate it without causing undue oscillation in the vehicle. Minimize the transfer of vehicle weight from side to side and front to back, as this transfer of weight reduces the tire's grip on the road.

Road Isolation

Allow the vehicle body to The vehicle's ability to ride absorb or isolate road undisturbed shock from the while traveling passenger compartment over rough roads. The degree to which a car maintains contact with the road surface in various types of directional changes and in a straight line (Example: The weight of a car will shift from the rear tires to the front tires during braking. Because the nose of the car dips Keep the tires in contact with the ground, because it is the friction between the tires and the road that affects a vehicle's ability to steer, brake and accelerate.

Road Holding

toward the road, this type of motion is known as "dive." The opposite effect -"squat" -- occurs during acceleration, which shifts the weight of the car from the front tires to the back.) Minimize body roll, which occurs as centrifugal force pushes outward on a car's center of gravity while cornering, raising one side of the vehicle and lowering the opposite side.

Cornering

The ability of a vehicle to travel a curved path

Transfer the weight of the car during cornering from the high side of the vehicle to the low side.

A car's suspension, with its various components, provides all of the solutions described. Car Suspension Parts Chassis The suspension of a car is actually part of the chassis, which comprises all of the important systems located beneath the car's body. These systems include:

• • • •

The frame - structural, load-carrying component that supports the car's engine and body, which are in turn supported by the suspension The suspension system - setup that supports weight, absorbs and dampens shock and helps maintain tire contact The steering system - mechanism that enables the driver to guide and direct the vehicle The tires and wheels - components that make vehicle motion possible by way of grip and/or friction with the road So the suspension is just one of the major systems in any vehicle. Springs Today's springing systems are based on one of four basic designs:



Coil springs - This is the most common type of spring and is, in essence, a heavy-duty torsion bar coiled around an axis. Coil springs compress and expand to absorb the motion of the wheels.



Leaf springs - This type of spring consists of several layers of metal (called "leaves") bound together to act as a single unit. Leaf springs were first used on horse-drawn carriages and were found on most American automobiles until 1985. They are still used today on most trucks and heavy-duty vehicles.



Torsion bars - Torsion bars use the twisting properties of a steel bar to provide coil-spring-like performance. This is how they work: One end of a bar is anchored to the vehicle frame. The other end is attached to a wishbone, which acts like a lever that moves perpendicular to the torsion bar. When the wheel hits a bump, vertical motion is transferred to the wishbone and then, through the levering action, to the torsion bar. The torsion bar then twists along its axis to provide the spring force. European carmakers used this system extensively, as did Packard and Chrysler in the United States, through the 1950s and 1960s.

Photo courtesy HowStuffWorks Shopper Torsion bar



Air springs - Air springs, which consist of a cylindrical chamber of air positioned between the wheel and the car's body, use the compressive qualities of air to absorb wheel vibrations. The concept is actually more than a century old and could be found on horse-drawn buggies. 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.

Based 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. Springs: Sprung and Unsprung Mass 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. The stiffness of the springs affects how the sprung mass responds while the car is being driven. Loosely sprung cars, such as luxury cars (think Lincoln Town Car), 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. Tightly sprung cars, such as sports cars (think Mazda Miata), are less forgiving on bumpy roads, but they minimize body motion well, which means they can be driven aggressively, even around corners. 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. And to make matters more complex, springs alone can't provide a perfectly smooth ride. Why? Because springs are great at absorbing energy, but not so good at dissipating it. Other structures, known as dampers, are required to do this. Dampers: Shock Absorbers

Unless a dampening structure is present, a car spring will extend and release the energy it absorbs from a bump at an uncontrolled rate. The spring will continue to bounce at its natural frequency until all of the energy originally put into it is used up. A suspension built on springs alone would make for an extremely bouncy ride and, depending on the terrain, an uncontrollable car. Enter the shock absorber, or snubber, a device that controls unwanted spring motion through a process known as dampening. Shock absorbers slow down and reduce the magnitude of vibratory motions by turning the kinetic energy of suspension movement into heat energy that can be dissipated through hydraulic fluid. To understand how this works, it's best to look inside a shock absorber to see its structure and function. A shock absorber is basically an oil pump placed between the frame of the car and the wheels. 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). In a twintube 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 inner tube is known as the pressure tube, and the outer tube is known as the reserve tube. The reserve tube stores excess hydraulic fluid.

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. Orifices perforate the piston and allow fluid to leak through as the piston moves up and down in the pressure tube. Because the orifices are relatively tiny, only a small amount of fluid, under great pressure, passes through. This slows down the piston, which in turn slows down the spring. Shock absorbers work in two cycles -- the compression cycle and the extension cycle. The compression cycle occurs as the piston moves downward, compressing the hydraulic fluid in the chamber below the piston. The extension cycle occurs as the piston moves toward the top of the pressure tube, compressing the fluid in the chamber above the piston. A typical car or light truck will have more resistance during its extension cycle than its compression cycle. With that in mind, the compression cycle controls the motion of the vehicle's unsprung weight, while extension controls the heavier, sprung weight. All modern shock absorbers are velocity-sensitive -- the faster the suspension moves, the more resistance the shock absorber provides. This enables shocks to adjust to road conditions and to control all of the unwanted motions that can occur in a moving vehicle, including bounce, sway, brake dive and acceleration squat. Dampers: Struts and Anti-sway Bars

Common strut design Another common dampening structure is the strut -- basically a shock absorber mounted inside a coil spring. Struts perform two jobs: They provide a dampening function like shock absorbers, and they provide structural support for the vehicle suspension. That means struts deliver a bit more than shock absorbers, which don't support vehicle weight -- they only control the speed at which weight is transferred in a car, not the weight itself. Because shocks and struts have so much to do with the handling of a car, they can be considered critical safety features. Worn shocks and struts can allow excessive vehicle-weight transfer from side to side and front to back. This reduces the tire's ability to grip the road, as well as handling and braking performance.

Anti-sway Bars Anti-sway bars (also known as anti-roll bars) are used along with shock absorbers or struts to give a moving automobile additional stability. An anti-sway bar is a metal rod that spans the entire axle and effectively joins each side of the suspension together. When the suspension at one wheel moves up and down, the anti-sway bar transfers movement to the other wheel. This creates a more level ride and reduces vehicle sway. In particular, it combats the roll of a car on its suspension as it corners. For this reason, almost all cars today are fitted with anti-sway bars as standard equipment, although if they're not, kits make it easy to install the bars at any time.

Suspension Types: Front
So far, our discussions have focused on how springs and dampers function on any given wheel. But the four wheels of a car work together in two independent systems -- the two wheels connected by the front axle and the two wheels connected by the rear axle. That means that a car can and usually does have a different type of suspension on the front and back. Much is determined by whether a rigid axle binds the wheels or if the wheels are permitted to move independently. The former arrangement is known as a dependent system, while the latter arrangement is known as an independent system. In the following sections, we'll look at some of the common types of front and back suspensions typically used on mainstream cars.

Front suspension - dependent systems So-called because the front wheel's suspension systems are physically linked. For everyday use, they are,not good. There is only one type of dependent system you need to know about. It is basically a solid bar under the front of the car, kept in place by leaf springs and shock absorbers. It's still common to find these on trucks, but if you find a car with one of these you should sell it

to a museum. They haven't been used on mainstream cars for years for three main reasons:

• • •

Shimmy - because the wheels are physically linked, the beam can be set into oscillation if one wheel hits a bump and the other doesn't. It sets up a gyroscopic torque about the steering axis which starts to turn the axle left left-toright. Because of the axle's inertia, this in turn feeds back to amplify the original motion. Weight - or more specifically unsprung weight. Solid front axles weigh a lot and either need sturdy, heavy leaf rung springs or heavy suspension linkages to keep their wheels on the road. Alignment - simply put, you can't adjust the alignment of wheels on a rigid axis. From the factory, they're perfectly set, but if the beam gets even slightly distorted, you can't adjust the wheels to compensate.

Front suspension - independent systems So-named because the front wheel's suspension systems are independent of each other (except where joined by an named anti-roll bar) These came into existence around 1930 and have been in use in one form or another pretty much ever ) since then. MacPherson strut

A simple MacPherson strut suspension on the left front wheel of a rear rear-wheel drive vehicle. Front of the vehicle top right in image. Red section: Steering knuckle or hub carrier Blue section: Lower control arm or track control arm Light blue section: Steering gear tie rod Lower purple section: Radius rod Upper purple Section: Coil spring Yellow section: Tubular housing containing shock absorber or damper The MacPherson strut is a type of car suspension system which uses the axis of a telescopic damper as the upper steering pivot. It is widely used in modern vehicles and named after Earle S. MacPherson, who developed the design. This is currently, without doubt, the most widely used front suspension system in cars of European origin. It is simplicity itself. The system basically comprises of a strut strut-type spring and shock absorber combo, which pivots on a ball joint o the single, lower arm. At the top end on there is a needle roller bearing on some more sophisticated systems. The strut itself is the load-bearing member in this assembly, with the spring and shock absorber merely bearing performing their duty as oppose to actually holding the car up. In the picture here, you can't see the shock absorber because it is encased in the black gaiter inside th e spring.The steering gear is either connected directly to the lower shock absorber The housing, or to an arm from the front or back o the spindle (in this case). When you of steer, it physically twists the strut and shock absorber housing (and consequently the spring) to turn the wheel. Simple. The spring is seated in a special plate at the top of the assembly which allows this twisting t take place. If the spring or this plate are to worn, you'll get a loud 'clonk' on full lock as the spring frees up and jumps into place. This is sometimes confused for CV joint knock. Design MacPherson struts consist of a wishbone or a substantial compression link stabilized by a secondary link which provides a bottom mounting compression point for the hub or axle of the wheel. This lower arm is broken and does not work system provides both lateral and longitudi location of the longitudinal wheel. The upper part of the hub is rigidly fixed to the inner part of the strut proper, the outer parson strut required the introduction of unibody (or monocoque) construction, because it needs a substantial vertical space and a strong top mount, which unibodies can provide, while benefi benefiting them by distributing stresses.[4] The strut will usually carry both the coil spring on which the body is suspended and the shock absorber, which is usually in the form of a cartridge mounted within the strut (see coilover). The strut also usually has a steering arm built into the lower inner portion. The whole assembly is very simple and can be preassembled into a unit; also by eliminating the upper control arm it allows for more arm, width in the engine bay, which is useful for smaller cars, particularly with transverse-mounted engines such as most front wheel drive vehicles mounted have. It can be further simplified, if needed, by substituting an anti-roll bar (torsion bar) for the radius arm.[4] For those reasons, it has become almost ubiquitous with low cost manufacturers. Furthermore, it offers an easy method to set suspension geometry.[5]

Rover 2000 MacPherson derivative During WWII, the British car maker Rover worked on experimental gas-turbine engines, and after the war, retained a lot of knowledge about them. The gasturbine Rover T4, which looked a lot like the Rover P6, Rover 2000 and Rover 3500, was one of the prototypes. The chassis was fundamentally the same as the other Rovers and the net result was the the 2000 and 3500 ended up with a very odd front suspension layout. The gas turbine wasn't exactly small, and Rover needed as much room as possible in the engine bay to fit it. The suspension was derived from a normal MacPherson strut but with an added bellcrank. This allowed the suspension unit to sit horizontally along the outside of the engine bay rather than protruding into it and taking up space. The bellcrank transferred the upward forces from the suspension into rearward forces for the spring / shock combo to deal with. In the end, the gas turbine never made it into production and the Rover 2000 was fitted with a 2-litre 4-cylinder engine, whilst the Rover 3500 was fitted with an 'evergreen' 3.5litre V8. Open the hood of either of these classics and the engine looks a bit lost in there because there's so much room around it that was never utilised. The image on the left shows the Rover-derivative MacPherson strut. Potted history of MacPherson: Earle S. MacPherson of General Motors developed the MacPherson strut in 1947. GM cars were originally design-bound by accountants. If it cost too much or wasn't tried and tested, then it didn't get built/used. Major GM innovations including the MacPherson Strut suspension system sat stifled on the shelf for years because innovation cannot be proven on a spreadsheet until after the product has been produced or manufactured. Consequently, Earle MacPherson went to work for Ford UK in 1950, where Ford started using his design on the 1950 'English' Ford models straight away. Today the strut type is referred to both with and without the "a" in the name, so both McPherson Strut and MacPherson Strut can be used to describe it. Further note: Earle MacPherson should never be confused with Elle McPherson - the Australian über-babe. In her case, the McPherson Strut is something she does on a catwalk, or in your dreams if you like that sort of thing. And if you're a bloke, then you ought to....

Advantages and Disadvantages Although it is a popular choice due to its simplicity and low manufacturing cost, the design has a few disadvantages, with regards to the quality of ride it provides and how it affects the handling of the car. Geometric analysis shows it cannot allow vertical movement of the wheel without some degree of either camber angle change, sideways movement, or both. It is not generally considered to give as good handling as a double wishbone suspension, because it allows the engineers less freedom to choose camber change and roll center. Another drawback is that it tends to transmit noise and vibration from the road directly into the body shell, giving higher noise levels and a "harsh" feeling to the ride compared with double wishbones, requiring manufacturers to add extra noise reduction or cancellation and isolation mechanisms. Also, because of its greater size and robustness and greater degree of attachment to the vehicle structure, when the internal seals of the shock absorber portion wear out replacement is expensive compared to replacing a simple shock absorber.[citation needed] Despite these drawbacks, the MacPherson strut setup is still used on high performance cars such as the Porsche 911, several Mercedes-Benz models and nearly all current BMWs (including the new Mini) excluding the 2007 X5,[6] 2009 7-series, 2011 5-series and 5-series GT,. The Porsche 911 up until the 1989 model year (964) use Macpherson strut designs that do not have coil springs, using a torsion bar suspension instead. Double wishbone suspension systems. In automobiles, a double wishbone (or upper and lower A-arm) suspension is an independent suspension design using two (occasionally parallel) wishbone-shaped arms to locate the wheel. Each wishbone or arm has two mounting points to the chassis and one joint at the knuckle. The shock absorber and coil spring mount to the wishbones to control vertical movement. Double wishbone designs allow the engineer to carefully control the motion of the wheel throughout suspension travel, controlling such parameters as camber angle, caster angle, toe pattern, roll center height, scrub radius, scuff and more Implementation Double Wishbone Suspension

The double-wishbone suspension can also be referred to as "double A-arms," though the arms themselves can be of a A-shaped, L-shaped, or even a single bar linkage. A single wishbone or A-arm can also be used in various other suspension types, such as MacPherson strut and Chapman strut. The upper arm is usually shorter to induce negative camber as the suspension jounces (rises), and often this arrangement is titled an "SLA" or "short long arms" suspension. When the vehicle is in a turn, body roll results in positive camber gain on the lightly loaded inside wheel, while the heavily loaded outer wheel gains negative camber. Between the outboard end of the arms is a knuckle with a spindle (the kingpin), hub, or upright which carries the wheel bearing and wheel. In order to resist fore-aft loads such as acceleration and braking, the arms require two bushings or ball joints at the body. At the knuckle end, single ball joints are typically used, in which case the steering loads have to be taken via a steering arm, and the wishbones look A- or L-shaped. An L-shaped arm is generally preferred on passenger vehicles because it allows a better compromise of handling and comfort to be tuned in. The bushing inline with the wheel can be kept relatively stiff to effectively handle cornering loads while the off-line joint can be softer to allow the wheel to recess under fore aft impact loads. For a rear suspension, a pair of joints can be used at both ends of the arm, making them more H-shaped in plan view. Alternatively, a fixed-length driveshaft can perform the function of a wishbone as long as the shape of the other wishbone provides control of the upright. This arrangement has been successfully used in the Jaguar IRS. In elevation view, the suspension is a 4-bar link, and it is easy to work out the camber gain (see camber angle) and other parameters for a given set of bushing or ball joint locations. The various bushings or ball joints do not have to be on horizontal axes, parallel to the vehicle centre line. If they are set at an angle, then antidive and antisquat geometry can be dialed in. In many racing cars, the springs and dampers are relocated inside the bodywork. The suspension uses a bellcrank to transfer the forces at the knuckle end of the suspension to the internal spring and damper. This is then known as a "push rod" if bump travel "pushes" on the rod (and subsequently the rod must be joined to the bottom of the upright and angled upward). As the wheel rises the push rod, via a pivot or pivoting system, compresses the internal spring. The opposite arrangement, a "pull rod," will pull on the rod during bump travel, and the rod must be attached to the top of the upright, angled downward. Locating the spring and damper inboard increases the total mass of the suspension, but reduces the unsprung mass, and also allows the designer to make the suspension more aerodynamic.[1]

Advantages and disadvantages The advantage of a double wishbone suspension is that it is fairly easy to work out the effect of moving each joint, so the kinematics of the suspension can be tuned easily and wheel motion can be optimized. It is also easy to work out the loads that different parts will be subjected to which allows more optimized lightweight parts to be designed. They also provide increasing negative camber gain all the way to full jounce travel unlike the MacPherson strut which provides negative camber gain only at the beginning of jounce travel and then reverses into positive camber gain at high jounce amounts. The disadvantage is that it is slightly more complex than other systems like a MacPherson strut. Due to the increased number of components within the suspension setup it takes much longer to service and is heavier than an equivalent MacPherson design. Uses The double wishbone suspension was introduced in 1935 by Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan on the Packard OneTwenty[citation needed], and advertised as a safety feature. Prior to the dominance of front wheel drive in the 1980s, many everyday cars used double wishbone front-suspension systems, or a variation on it. Since that time, the MacPherson strut has become almost ubiquitous, as it is simpler and cheaper to manufacture. In most cases, a MacPherson strut requires less space to engineer into a chassis design, and in front-wheel-drive layouts, can allow for more room in the engine bay. A good example of this is observed in the Honda Civic, which changed its front-suspension design from a double wishbone design to a MacPherson strut design after the year 2000 model. Double wishbones are usually considered to have superior dynamic characteristics as well as load-handling capabilities, and are still found on higher performance vehicles. Examples of makes in which double wishbones can be found include Alfa Romeo, Honda and Mercedes-Benz. Short long arms suspension, a type of double wishbone suspension, is very common on front suspensions for medium-to-large cars such as the Honda Accord, Peugeot 407, or Mazda 6/Atenza, and is very common on sports cars and racing cars.

The following three examples are all variations on the same theme. Coil Spring type 1 This is a type of double-A or double wishbone suspension. The wheel spindles are supported by an upper and lower 'A' shaped arm. In this type, the lower arm carries most of the load. If you look head-on at this type of system, what you'll find is that it's a very parallelogram system that allows the spindles to travel vertically up and down. When they do this, they also have a slight side-to-side motion caused by the arc that the wishbones describe around their pivot points. This side-to-side motion is known as scrub. Unless the links are infinitely long the scrub motion is always present. There are two other types of motion of the wheel relative to the body when the suspension articulates. The first and most important is a toe angle (steer angle). The second and least important, but the one which produces most pub talk is the camber angle, or lean angle. Steer and camber are the ones which wear tyres.

Coil Spring type 2 This is also a type of double-A arm suspension although the lower arm in these systems can sometimes be replaced with a single solid arm (as in my picture). The only real difference between this and the previous system mentioned above is that the spring/shock combo is moved from between the arms to above the upper arm. This transfers the loadbearing capability of the suspension almost entirely to the upper arm and the spring mounts. The lower arm in this instance becomes a control arm. This particular type of system isn't so popular in cars as it takes up a lot room.

Multi-link suspension This is the latest incarnation of the double wishbone system described above. It's currently being used in the Audi A8 and A4 amongst other cars. The basic principle of it is the same, but instead of solid upper and lower wishbones, each 'arm' of the wishbone is a separate item. These are joined at the top and bottom of the spindle thus forming the wishbone shape. The super-weird thing about this is that as the spindle turns for steering, it alters the geometry of the suspension by torquing all four suspension arms. They have complex pivot systems designed to allow this to happen. Car manufacturers claim that this system gives even better road-holding properties, because all the various joints make the suspension almost infinitely adjustable. There are a lot of variations on this theme appearing at the moment, with huge differences in the numbers and complexities o f joints, numbers of arms, positioning of the parts etc. but they are all fundamentally the same. Note that in this system the spring (red) is separate from the shock absorber (yellow). Trailing-arm suspension The trailing arm system is literally that - a shaped suspension arm is joined at the front to the chassis, allowing the rear to swing up and down. Pairs of these become twin-trailingarm systems and work on exactly the same principle as the double wishbones in the systems described above. The difference is that instead of the arms sticking out from the side of the chassis, they travel back parallel to it. This is an older system not used so much any more because of the space it takes up, but it doesn't suffer from the side-to-side scrubbing problem of double wishbone systems. If you want to know what I mean, find a VW beetle and stick your head in the front wheel arch - that's a double-trailing-arm suspension setup. Simple.

Twin I-Beam suspension Used almost exclusively by Ford F-series trucks, twin I-beam suspension was introduced in 1965. This little oddity is a combination of trailing arm suspension and solid beam axle suspension. Only in this case the beam is split in two and mounted offset from the centre of the chassis, one section for each side of the suspension. The trailing arms are actually (technically) leading arms and the steering gear is mounted in front of the suspension setup. Ford claim this makes for a heavy-duty independent

front suspension setup capable of handling the loads associated with their trucks. In an empty truck, however, going over a bump with twin Ibeam suspension is like falling down stairs in leg irons.

Moulton rubber suspension This suspension system is based on the compression of a solid mass of rubber - red in both these images. The two types are essentially derivatives of the same design. It is named after Dr. Alex Moulton - one of the original design team on the Mini, and the engineer who designed its suspension system in 1959. This system is known by a few different names including cone and trumpet suspension (due to the shape of the rubber bung shown in the right hand picture). The rear suspension system on the original Mini also used Moulton's rubber suspension system, but laid out horizontally rather than vertically, to save space again. The Mini was originally intended to have Moulton's fluid-filled Hydrolastic suspension, but that remained on the drawing board for a few more years. Eventually, Hydrolastic was developed into Hydragas (see later on this page), and revised versions were adopted on the Mini Metro and the current MGF-sportscar. For a while, Moulton rubber suspension was used in a lot of bicycles - racing and mountain bikes. Due to the compact design and the simplicity of its operation and maintenance, it was an ideal solution, but has since been superceded by more advanced, lightweight designs. If you're interested in further reading, there's a memoir book out now about Alex Moulton and his original designs. Alex Moulton - a lifetime in engineering. Transverse leaf-spring This system is a bit odd in that it combines independent double wishbone suspension with a leaf spring like you'd normally find on the rear suspension. Famously used on the Corvette, it involves one leaf spring mounted across the vehicle, connected at each end to the lower wishbone. The centre of the spring is connected to the front subframe in the middle of the car. There are still two shock absorbers, mounted one to each side on the lower wishbones. Chevy insist that this is the best thing since sliced bread for a suspension system but there are plenty of other experts, manufacturers and race drivers who think it's junk. It's never been clear if this was a performance and design decision or a cost issue, but this type of system is very rare. Suspension Types: Rear Historical Suspensions Sixteenth-century wagons and carriages tried to solve the problem of "feeling every bump in the road" by slinging the carriage body from leather straps attached to four posts of a chassis that looked like an upturned table. Because the carriage body was suspended from the chassis, the system came to be known as a "suspension" -- a term still used today to describe the entire class of solutions. The slung-body suspension was not a true springing system, but it did enable the body and the wheels of the carriage to move independently. Semi-elliptical spring designs, also known as cart springs, quickly replaced the leather-strap suspension. Popular on wagons, buggies and carriages, the semi-elliptical springs were often used on both the front and rear axles. They did, however, tend to allow forward and backward sway and had a high center of gravity. By the time powered vehicles hit the road, other, more efficient springing systems were being developed to smooth out rides for passengers. Dependent Rear Suspensions If a solid axle connects the rear wheels of a car, then the suspension is usually quite simple -- based either on a leaf spring or a coil spring. In the former design, the leaf springs clamp directly to the drive axle. The ends of the leaf springs attach directly to the frame, and the shock absorber is attached at the clamp that holds the spring to the axle. For many years, American car manufacturers preferred this design because of its simplicity.The same basic design can be achieved with coil springs replacing the leaves. In this case, the spring and shock absorber can be mounted as a single unit or as separate components. When they're separate, the springs can be much smaller, which reduces the amount of space the suspension takes up. Rear suspension - dependent (linked) systems Solid-axle, leaf-spring This system was favoured by the Americans for years because it was dead simple and cheap to build. The ride quality is decidedly questionable though. The drive axle is clamped to the leaf springs and the shock absorbers normally bolt directly to the axle. The ends of the leaf springs are attached directly to the chassis, as are the tops of the shock absorbers. Simple, not particularly elegant, but cheap. The main drawback with this arrangement is the lack of lateral location for the axle, meaning it has a lot of side-to-side slop in it. Solid-axle, coil-spring

This is a variation and update on the system described above. The basic idea is the same, but the leaf springs have been removed in favour of either 'coil-over-oil' spring and shock combos, or as shown here, separate coil springs and shock absorbers. Because the leaf springs have been removed, the axle now needs to have lateral support from a pair control arms. The front ends of these are attached to the chassis, the rear ends to the axle. The variation shown here is more compact than the coil-over-oil type, and it means you can have smaller or shorter springs. This in turn allows the system to fit in a smaller area under the car.

Beam Axle This system is used in front wheel drive cars, where the rear axle isn't driven. (hence it's full description as a "dead beam"). Again, it is a relatively simple system. The beam runs across under the car with the wheels attached to either end of it. Spring / shock units or struts are bolted to either end and seat up into suspension wells in the car body or chassis. The beam has two integral trailing arms built in instead of the separate control arms required by the solid-axle coil-spring system. Variations on this system can have either separate springs and shocks, or the combined 'coil-over-oil' variety as shown here. One notable feature of this system is the track bar (or panhard rod). This is a diagonal bar which runs from one end the beam to a point either just in front of the opposite control arm (as here) or sometimes diagonally up to the top of the opposite spring mount (which takes up more room). This is to prevent side-to-side movement in the beam which would cause all manner of nasty handling problems. A variation on this them is the twist axle which is identical with the exception of the panhard rod. In a twist axle, the axle is designed to twist slightly. This gives, in effect, a semi-independent system whereby a bump on one wheel is partially soaked up by the twisting action of the beam. Yet another variation on this system does away with the springs and replaces them with torsion bars running across the chassis, and attached to the leading edge of the control arms. These beam types are currently very popular because of their simplicity and low cost. 4-Bar 4-bar suspension can be used on the front and rear of vehicles - I've chosen to show it in the "rear" section of this page because that's where it's normally found. 4-bar suspension comes in two varieties. Triangulated, shown on the right here, and parallel, shown on the left. The parallel design operates on the principal of a "constant motion parallelogram". The design of the 4-bar is such that the rear end housing is always parallel to the ground, and the pinion angle never changes. This, combined with the lateral stability of the Panhard Bar, does an excellent job of locating the rear end and keeping it in proper alignment. If you were to compare this suspension system on a truck with a 4-link or ladder-bar setup, you'd notice that the rear frame "kick up" of the 4-bar setup is far less severe. This, combined with the relatively compact installation design means that it's ideal for cars and trucks where space is at a premium. You'll find this setup on a lot of street rods and American style classic hot rods. The triangulated design operates on the same principle, but the top two bars are skewed inwards and joined to the rear end housing much closer to the centre. This eliminates the need for the separate panhard bar, which in turn means the whole setup is even more compact. Derivatives of the 4-Bar system There are many variations on the 4-bar systems I've illustrated above. For example, if the four angled bars go from th e axle outboard to the chassis near the centreline, this is called a "Satchell link". (Satchell is a US designer, who used the above linkage on some of Paul Newmans Datsun road racers some years back.) It has certain advantages over the above examples. Both of the these angled linkages can be reversed to have the angled links below the axle and the parallel links above. The roll centre will be lowered with the angled bars under the axle, a function which is difficult to accomplish without this design. The other variation on the "four bars" not shown are the Watts and Jacobs bar linkages to replace the Panhard rod for lateral positioning. Another linkage is the two parallel bars above the axle and a triangulated link underneath - a design you will find on the Lotus 7 - where the lower link has its base on the chassis and the apex under the differential. Then there is the Mallock Woblink, which could be described as half way between a Jacobs ladder and a Watts link, and makes it possible to place the rear roll centre quite low without sacrificing ground clearance. Watts links are pretty popular with the hydraulic lowrider/truck bed dancer types. The Jacobs ladder is used almost exclusively on US midget and sprintcar dirt track rear ends. The Mallock Woblink is used mostly on the Mallock U2 Clubman cars in Great Britain. de Dion suspension, or the de Dion tube The de Dion tube - not part of the London underground, but rather a semi-independent rear suspension system designed to combat the twin evils of unsprung weight and poor ride quality in live axle systems. de Dion suspension is a weird bastardisation of live-axle solid-beam suspension and fully independent trailing-arm suspension. It's neither one, but at the same time it's both. Weird! With this system, the wheels are interconnected by a de

Dion Tube, which is essentially a laterally-telescoping part of the suspension designed to allow the wheel track to vary during suspension movement. This is necessary because the wheels are always kept parallel to each other, and thus perpendicular to the road surface regardless of what the car body is doing. This setup means that when the wheels rebound, there is also no camber change which is great for traction, and that's the first advantage of a de Dion Tube. The second advantage is that it contributes to reduced unsprung weight in the vehicle because the transfer case / differential is attached to the chassis of the car rather than the suspension itself. Naturally, the advantages are equalled by disadvantages, and in the case of de Dion systems, the disadvantages would seem to win out. First off, it needs two CV joints per axle instead of only one. That adds complexity and weight. Well one of the advantages of not having the differential as part of the suspension is a reduction in weight, so adding more weight back into the system to compensate for the design is a definite distadvantage. Second, the brakes are mounted inboard with the calipers attached to the transfer case, which means to change a brake disc, you need to dismantle the entire suspension system to get the driveshaft out. (Working on the brake calipers is no walk in the park either.) Finally, de Dion units can be used with a leaf-spring or coil-spring arrangement. With coil spring (as shown here) it needs extra lateral location links, such as a panhard rod, wishbones or trailing links. Again - more weight and complexity. de Dion suspension was used mostly used from the mid 60's to the late 70's and could be found on some Rovers, the Alfa Romeo Alfettas (including the sedans and the GTV) and the GTV6, one or two Lancias a smattering of exotic racing cars and budget sports cars or coupes. More recently deDion suspension has had somewhat of a renaissance in the specialist sports car and kit car market such as those from Caterham, Westfield and Dax. These all uniformly now use outboard brake setups for ease-of-use, and a non-telescoping tube, usually with trailing links and an A-bar for lateral location (rather than a Watts linkage or Panhard rod.) Whilst a properly setup independent suspension system will always win hands-down on poorly maintained roads, when you get on to the track, the advantage is not so clear cut and a well set up deDion system can often match it turn-for-turn now, espeically for flyweight cars. Independent Rear Suspensions If both the front and back suspensions are independent, then all of the wheels are mounted and sprung individually, resulting in what car advertisements tout as "four-wheel independent suspension." Any suspension that can be used on the front of the car can be used on the rear, and versions of the front independent systems described in the previous section can be found on the rear axles. Of course, in the rear of the car, the steering rack -- the assembly that includes the pinion gear wheel and enables the wheels to turn from side to side -- is absent. This means that rear independent suspensions can be simplified versions of front ones, although the basic principles remain the same. Ford Control Blade™ Suspension A lot of attention and marketing was paid to Ford about their new Control Blade™ rear suspension when it first came out. Glossy marketing brochures told us how this revolution in rear suspension would make our Ford Focus handle better, grip the road better, and brake better than everything else on the road. What that essentially meant was "we've got a new suspension system". It actually started out its life sometime around 1998 in Ford of Australia and I believe Holden had something to do with it too. Since then its become far more mainstream. So "Control Blade™" is the snappy moniker that Ford came up with. It sounds good, looks good on paper, and has an aura of 21 st century-ness about it. "Blade". Ooh. Cool. But what is "it"? Control blade is basically an evolution of trailing-arm suspension. The purpose of Control Blade suspension is two-fold. First they wanted to separate the various suspension functions from each other - isolating the handling components from the ride qualiy components. With the springs and shock absorbers being mounted separately, Ford have managed to optimise the function of these components. It's similar in concept to what BMW did with the telelever front suspension on motorbikes (separating braking from suspension forces) only in the Ford system, it separates the springing support of the suspension from the shock reducing functions of the shock absorbers. Secondly it increases the interior space available in the vehicle. Most suspension systems used in daily drivers have strut towers in the rear of the vehicle - those bumps either side of the boot (trunk). Ford wanted to give more space in the back and needed to find a good way to remove or reduce the size of those towers. With Control Blade™, because the shock absorbers are separated from the springs, it opened up a lot more design flexibility. Ford used a trailing-arm type suspension so that they didn't have swingarms up under the wheel arches and the springs were shortened and moved inboard and underneath. In one variation, the shock absorbers still sit vertically but the space they take up now is hugely reduced because they no longer have the coil springs around the outside. In the second variation the shock absorber is a subminiature unit mounted inboard of the springs underneath the vehicle. The control blades themselves are basically the trailing arms which give lateral support and provide the vertical pivot point for the entire unit. The Ford spiel says this about Control Blade™: "It has the key function of promoting ride and reducing road noise transmission, while providing the freedom to let the lateral links define toe and camber by absorbing any rearward forces and allowing the rest of the suspension to do it's job uninterrupted. Effectively isolating the handling components of the new IRS from the road noise and impact harshness components of the suspension.". In English? It

means better handling and less road noise. Looking at the basic design it's not difficult to see that this system has a much lower centre of gravity than a Macpherson strut (for example). Lower C f C-of-G in a vehicle is always a good thing. G The geometry of the Control Blade™ system also provides significant 'anti dive' under braking force, which means a 'anti-dive' the car body will dive less when you jump on the brakes which in turn translates into more well well-behaved brakin g response. Lower C-of-G, less roll and less pitch during braking all add up to better handling. G, The images used here are currently from other sources as I've not had the time to render up my own just yet, but they show the basic layout of each variation of control blade suspension and I've annotated them accordingly. Aftermarket work on Control Blade™ vehicles. There's one thing worth noting about this suspension system. Because the spring and shock are in different locations, and because of the reduced or removed strut towers, it makes it very difficult to bolt on aftermarket suspension kits to bolt-on these vehicles. For the daily driver, that's probably not an issue but if you're looking at spif spiffing up the suspension on a Ford Focus for track days or racing, it's not going to be quite so straightforward as it is on other cars. Just so you know. Hydrolastic Suspension If you've got this far, you'll remember that Dr. Alex Moulton originally wanted the Mini to have Hydrolastic suspension - a system where the front and rear suspension systems were connected together in order to better level the car when driving. The principle is simple. The front and rear suspension units have Hydrolastic displacers, one per side. These are interconnected by a acers, small bore pipe. Each displacer incorporates a rubber spring (as in the Moulton rubber suspension system), and damping of the system is achieved by rubber valves. So when a front wheel is deflected, fluid is displaced to the corresponding suspension unit. That pressurises the interconnecting pipe which in turn stiffens the rear wheel damping and lowers it. The rubber springs are only slightly brought into play and the car is effectively kept level and freed from any tendency to pitch. That's clever enough, but the fact that it can do this without hindering the full range of motion of either suspension unit is even more clever, because it has the effect of producing a soft ride. Pictures and images of anything to do with hydrolastic suspension are few and far between now, so you'll have to excuse the plagiarism of g the following image. The animation below shows the self self-leveling effect - notice the body stays level and doesn't pitch. But what happens when the front and rear wheels encounter bumps or dips together? One cannot take precedent over the other, so the fluid suspension stiffens in response to the combined upward motion and, while acting as a damper, transfers the load to the rubber springs instead, gi ving a controlled, vertical, but level motion to the car. giving Remember I said the units were connected with a small bore pipe? The restriction of the fluid flow, imposed by this pipe, rises with the speed of the car. This means a steadier ride at high speed, a nd a softer more comfortable ride at and low speed. Hydrolastic suspension is hermetically sealed and thus shouldn't require much, if any, attention or maintenance during its normal working life. Bear in mind that hydrolastic suspension was introduced in 1964 (on the prototype BMC ADO16) and you'd be lucky to find a unit today that has had any work done to it. The image here shows a typical lateral installation for hydrolastic rear suspension. The suspension swingarms are attached to the main subframe. The r cylinders are red the displacer units containing the fluid and the rubber spring. The pipes leading from the units can be seen and they would connect to the corresponding units at the front of the vehicle. Hydrolastic suspension shouldn't be confused with Citroën's hydropneumatic suspension (see below). That system uses a hydraulic pump that raises and lowers the car to different heights. Sure it's a superior system but it's also a lot more costly to manufacture and maintain. That's due in part to the fact that they don't use o-rings as seals; the pistons and bores are machined to incredible tolerances (microns), that it makes seals unnecessary. Downside : if something leaks, you need a whole new cylinder assembly. Hydrolastic was eventually refined into H Hydragas suspension....... Hydragas Suspension Hydragas is an evolution of Hydrolastic, and essentially, the design and installation of the system is the same. The difference is in the displacer unit itself. In the older systems, fluid was used in the displacer units with a rubber spring cushion built lacer built-in. With Hydragas, the rubber spring is removed completely. The fluid still exists but above the fluid there is now a separating membrane or diaphragm, and above that is a cylinder or sphere which is charged with nitrogen gas. The nitrogen section is what ith

has become the spring and damping unit whilst the fluid is still free to run from the front to the rear units and back. Hydragas suspension was famously used in the 1986 Porsche 959 Rally car that entered the Paris-Dakar Rally, and today you can find it on the MGF Roadster.

Hydraulic Suspension Hydraulic suspension is an innovation making its way into motor sports, no doubt to trickle down to consumer vehicles eventually. It has been designed by a Spanish company called Creuat and pioneered by the Racing For Holland Dome S101 sports car team. In the image below you can see both the traditional coilover system (the yellow/blue/red units) at the front of the car. This photo was taken before scrutineering for the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans race. The team had both systems online and when scrutineering passed the car, the coilover units were removed, to race for the first time completely with hydraulic suspension. Central to their system is a control unit mounted next to the cockpit. They tell me the system can't be compared to the hydropneumatic suspension Citroën uses because this system doesn't use a pump and has less than a litre of hydraulic fluid in the entire system. Instead of springs and dampers, this central Hydropneumatic unit takes care of each suspension mode in an independent manner. This allows the car to be tuned to avoid most of the compromises which arise out of the use of conventional suspension made of springs and dampers. This system is so new that the best source of information on it is Creuat's own website. You can find it at this link and you need to look for the Le Mans Project in their menu on the left side of their page. The hydraulic suspension page is a work-in-progress project and its content changes almost weekly at the moment. Racecar Engineering magazine have a feature article about this suspension system at this link but you need a subscription to read the whole thing. Fortunately Creuat have scanned the article and made it available as a 6.2Mb PDF file which you can read here. Thanks to Sander van Dijk for sending me these photos, plus a ton of others of their racing car. Digital Suspension Systems Beginning in 2006 with the Audi TT (see below), the concept of fully independent suspension systems came into being. Traditional 'analogue' independent suspension is still connected side-toside by anti-roll bars. With the advent of computer-controlled suspension systems that are able to rapidly adapt to changing road surfaces, the anti-roll bar is no longer needed. Its function can be replaced as long as sensors and electronically-adjustable suspension can be combined together. For example when the sensors detect body roll in a corner, the suspension components in all four corners of the car can be electronically adjusted to compensate in real-time. Other vehicles that use digital suspension now are the Range Rover Evoque and the Audi R8 but the list will surely grow as it becomes more mainstream. The next couple of topics deal with two such systems - ferrofluid, and linear electromagnetic suspension. Ferrofluid or magneto-rheological fluid dampers - Audi Magnetic Ride. With the 2006 Audi TT, Audi launched their innovative magnetic semiactive suspension. Its a totally new form of damping technology refined from Delphi's MagneRide system. Delphi used to be a division of GM when they developed the first version of Magneride in conjunction with LORD Corp. (The initial version was used in the 2002 Cadillac Seville STS). It is designed once again to attempt to resolve the long-standing conflict between cabin comfort and driving dynamics. The Audi system is a coninuously adaptive system - ie it's a closed feedback loop that can react to changes both in the road surface and the gear-changes (front-toback weight shift) within milliseconds. So how does this work? Well, the dampers in the Audi system are not filled with your regular old shock absorber oil. Nope. They're filled with (wait for it) magneto-rheological fluid. This is a synthetic hydrocarbon oil containing subminiature magnetic particles. When a voltage is applied to a coil inside the damper piston, it creates a magnetic field (physics 101 - get

that old textbook out and check the left- and right-handed electro-magnetic rules that make electric motors work). Inside the magnetic field, all the magnetic particles in the oil change alignment in microseconds to lie predominantly across the damper. Because the damper is trying to squeeze oil up and down through the flow channels, having the particles lined up transverse to this motion makes the oil 'stiffer'. Stiffer oil flows less, which stiffens up the suspension. Neat. You might have seen a demo of a similar system on TV in 2005 when an artist in New York started making living art using a ferromagnetic liquid (ferrofluid) and electromagnets. The principle is exactly the same - apply a magnetic field and the fluid lines up along the lines of magnetism. The image on the left shows a ferrofluid demonstration.

The Audi system has a centralised control unit which sends signals to the coils on each damper. Hooked up to complex force and acceleration sensing gauges, the control unit constantly analyses what's going on with the car and adjusts the damping settings accordingly. Because there are no moving parts - no valves to open or close - the system reacts within microseconds; far quicker than any other active suspension technology on the market today. And because the amount of voltage applied to the coils can be varied nearly infinitely, the dampers have a similarly near-infinite number of settings. The power usage for each strut is around 5 Watts, and the entire thing takes up no more room than a regular coil-over-oil unit. Vorsprung durch Technik indeed. The diagram here shows the basic principle of magnetised vs. unmagnetised ferrofluid, as well as a cutaway of the piston assembly in a Magneride-type damper. The little blue balls represent the particles of fluid, and yes I know they're huge - that's artistic licence so you can see them. Linear Electromagnetic Suspension Picture credits: Bose Suspension Systems & Bose press kit. This is another digital suspension systems, invented by Bose®. The idea is that instead of springs and shock absorbers on each corner of the car, a single linear electromagnetic motor and power amplifier can be used instead. Inside the linear electromagnetic motor are magnets and coils of wire. When electrical power is applied to the coils, the motor retracts and extends, creating motion between the wheel and car body. It's like the electromagnetic effect used to propel some newer rollercoaster cars on launch, or if you're into videogames and sci-fi, it's like a railgun. One of the big advantages of an electromagnetic approach is speed. The linear electromagnetic motor responds quickly enough to counter the effects of bumps and potholes, thus allowing it to perform the actions previously reserved for shock absorbers. In it's second mode of operation, the system can be used to counter body roll by stiffening the suspension in corners. As well as these functions, it can also be used to raise and lower ride height dynamically. So you could drop the car down low for motorway cruising, but raise it up for the pot-hole ridden city streets. It's all very clever. The power amplifier delivers electrical power to the motor in response to signals from the control algorithms. These mathematical algorithms have been developed over 24 years of research. They operate by observing sensor measurements taken from around the car and sending commands to the power amps installed with each linear motor. The goal of the control algorithms is to allow the car to glide smoothly over roads and to eliminate roll and pitch during driving. The amplifiers themselves are based on switching amplification technologies pioneered by Dr. Bose at MIT in the early 1960s. The really smart thing about the power amps is that they are regenerative. So for example, when the suspension encounters a pothole, power is used to extend the motor and isolate the vehicle's occupants from the disturbance. On the far side of the pothole, the motor operates as a generator and returns power back through the amplifier. By doing this, the Bose® system requires less than a third of the power of a typical vehicle's air conditioner system. Clever, eh? Bose have also managed to package this little wonder of technology into a two-point harness - ie it basically needs two bolts to attach it to your vehicle and that's it. It's a pretty compact design, not much bigger than a normal shock absorber. The official Bose suspension page can be found here if you want more info.

It's worth noting that a company called Aura Systems devised (or at least tried to market) a similar linear electromagnetic suspension system around 1991. They published an article in the Automotive Engineering Journal claiming that electromagnetic actuators could be used

for vehicle suspensions and it said that small devices could be designed with a typical thrust capability of about 2500 Newtons and for a reasonable power demand. This happened at the same time that linear electromagnetic rams were being developed for entertainment simulators and full flight simulators to replace hydraulic systems. In fact, it could be argued that the Aura Systems ram was a direct descendant of the rams found on Super-X entertainment simulators. The units looked very similar to the Bose devices and had the same limitation - they couldn't carry the dead weight of the vehicle. Aura Systems ran into financial troubles in 2000, and filed for Chapter 11 in 2005. The time scales fit quite nicely into the declared Bose time frame (start of development versus going public). Of course they could have been parallel developments, but the bigger question is why was Aura not able to sell their system to an OEM at some time during the previous 15 years? Could it be to do with mechanical limitations - that the sway bars carrying vertical loads are very good at transmitting road inputs into the vehicle structure even if the bar rate is low? Time will tell if Bose manage to succeed where Aura Systems failed. Air suspension In days gone by, air suspension was limited to expensive logistics trucks - heavy goods vehicles that needed to be able to maintain a level ride no matter what the road condition. Nowadays, you can retrofit air suspension to just about any vehicle you like from a Range Rover to a Ferrari. Air suspension replaces the springs in your car with either an air bag or an air strut made of high-tensile super flexible polyurethane rubber. Each air bag or strut is connected to a valve to control the amount of air allowed into it. The valves are in turn connected to an air compressor and a small compressed air reservoir. By opening and closing the four valves, the amount of air sent to each unit can be varied. By letting the same amount of air out of all the units, reducing the pressure in the bags, your car gets lowered, whilst increasing the air pressure by the same amount in each unit results in your car lifting higher off the ground. The rubber bags filled with air provide the springing action that used to be the realm of metal springs, and you have the option to maintain the factory (or aftermarket) shock absorbers for - well - absorbing shocks. That's it in a nutshell. Why air suspension? Simple : ride quality. A well set up air suspension system can surpass metal spring suspension in just about any situation. If you want a luxurious, smooth, supple ride that will iron out the deepest of ruts and crevasses in the road, air suspension is what you're looking for. It's why logistics firms have used it in their trucks since the year dot - air suspension transmits much less road vibration into the vehicle chassis. There are literally hundreds of combinations and permutations of air bags and struts that can be adapted to fit just about any vehicle and the big hitter in the aftermarket segment at the moment is Air Ride Technologies if you're in America. In England, Rayvern Hydraulics have a similarly complete range of aftermarket solutions. One point to note: for some reason the imperial fittings used on some American systems are all but impossible to get hold of in the UK, so if you're in England and looking for air suspension, Rayvern would be a good choice, or BSS or GAS in Germany. In factory fit systems, almost any sports sedan that has variable ride height (like a lot of the current crop of Audis) is using air suspension to accomplish this. Bags and struts Air bag systems come in two different flavours - air bags and air struts. The bags are typically used for leaf-spring suspension vehicles, but can easily be adapted (through the use of bolt-on brackets) to almost any swinging-arm type suspension system. Air bags are the most reliable systems because of their simplicity. Air struts are a little more complex and come in two flavours - simple struts and pivoting struts. It used to be that you could only have a simple strut because none of the manufacturers had figured out how to keep the air strut sealed when it twisted - a function that is required if you're going to replace a MacPherson strut. Now though, there are a couple of different options for MacPherson strut replacement, the most complex being the twisting double-doughnut style strut that still allows the shock absorber to pass through the middle of it. The two images here show an air bag system as applied to the rear leaf spring suspension on a truck, and a simple non-twisting air strut system as applied to a double swingarm unit. Ride height sensors Simple air suspension is pretty much what I've outlined above, but most systems are far more sophisticated. For example each unit will normally work in conjunction with a ride-height sensor. This is a mechanical lever linked to the suspension arm at one end, and to an electronic resistance pot at the other. The pot is connected to the chassis or frame so that the lever spins the pot as the suspension moves up and down. A computer can use this to read the height of the vehicle in that corner, and with that data, all sorts of wonderful things can happen. For example, if you mash the accelerator pedal, a car will typically squat under acceleration. When this happens, the ride height at the rear of the car gets less. An air suspension system can register this and either send more air to the rear, or reduce the pressure at the front to level off the car again. Same goes for side-to-side roll in corners - air suspension can

compensate somewhat for body roll when connected to ride-height sensors. New generation systems also incorporate air pressure sensors to add another level of feedback to the system. Control panels In a factory-fit air suspension system, the control panel will either be integrated into the onboard computer (like BMW's i-Drive), or be accessible via a ride-height adjustment control. For aftermarket systems, the control panel is normally a hand-held device with a series of control buttons and LED readouts on it. Either way, the control panel is how you determine what you want the suspension to do, be it hunkered down for sporty driving, or high off the ground for extra clearance. Low-riders Love 'em or hate 'em, there's no getting around the fact that some petrolheads just love to slam their rides down to the floor but put air suspension systems in capable of making the cars hop, jump and dance. The only real difference with these systems is that they have a much larger high-pressure reservoir normally in the boot or trunk, connected to valves that can open very rapidly. Instead of the smooth, gentle ride-height adjustment of a factory-fit system, these valves can bang open and discharge huge quantities of air from the reservoir into the air bags extremely quickly. The result is the suspension elongating extremely quickly and with enough force to propel the car into the air. In truth, the extreme low riders like this tend to go more for hydraulic actuators than air suspension. Hydraulics give far more power, far more quickly and are a lot more robust when it comes to the constant hammering they get from competitions and shows. The principle is exactly the same though - a reservoir, a compressor, a set of valves and a set of hydraulic lifters connected to the suspension components. The downside? No suspension to speak of because the hydraulic actuators have no give in them like the rubber air bags do.

Variable-camber suspension for steering If you've read the wheel and tyre bible, you'll know that camber is the lateral tilt of the suspension (and hence the wheel and the tyre) to the road surface. Proper camber (along with toe and caster) make sure that the tyre tread surface is as flat as possible on the road surface. The problem with regular fixed-geometry suspension is that the camber is set up to be ideal when driving straight. This means that however much you dislike the idea, when you corner, less of the tyre's tread is in contact with the road surface because the tyre has to tilt slightly when the steering is turned. In 2006, OnCamber LLC patented their variable camber steering system which they launched at SEMA in Las Vegas. Matthew Kim, OnCamber's founder and president was kind enough to send some pictures of their development system which you can see here. The idea is simple - as the steering wheel is turned, the steering input shifts the top mounts of a McPherson strut type suspension system laterally. In other words, the top of the strut is no longer solidly bolted to the strut tower. When the top mount point is moved, the camber of the suspension system changes. Turn to the left, and the mounting points shift to the left tilting the wheels over to the left giving a larger contact patch whilst cornering. ie. the inside wheel tilts and goes into positive camber(almost parallel to the outside wheel), which in turn contributes to the overall grip of the car. The variable camber action also gives even tyre wear. Pyrometer readings during testing have shown that the inside, mid, and outside tyre tread temperatures are all within 2° of each other. With regular fixedcamber steering, the inside of the tyre was 20° higher. OnCamber's development car is an RSX although they have designs on the table for double-wishbone variants of their system too. On the RSX testbed the camber plates are attached together by linear guides which permits them to move freely. The top connecting rods are mechanically connected to the steering rack. The degree of camber applied with steering is adjustable by varying the distance of the rods from the pivot point. ie: when the rods are mounted closer to pivot point you get more camber with less steering input. On track, this system has shaved 3 seconds off the development vehicle's lap times in race conditions. Whether this sytem will trickle down into consumer level cars is debatable. It's doubtful that a manufacturer would add this as standard but the racing and aftermarket scenes will undoubtedly welcome this development with open arms. 3 seconds off your lap time for a change of suspension components? Why wouldn't you? The images below show a camber plate at the top of one of the strut towers, and the mechanical steering linkage. Anti-roll Bars & Strut Braces Strut Braces

If you're serious about your car's handling performance, you will first be looking at lowering the suspension. In most cases, unless you're a complete petrolhead, this will be more than adequate. However, if you are a keen driver, you will be able to get far better handling out of your car by fitting a couple of other accessories to it. The first thing you should look at is a strut brace. When you corner, the whole car's chassis is twisting slightly. In the front (and perhaps at the back, but not so often) the suspension pillars will be moving relative to each other because there's no direct physical link between them. They are connected via the car body, which can flex depending on its stiffness. A strut brace bolts across the top of the engine to the tops of the two suspension posts and makes that direct physical contact. The result is that the whole front suspension setup becomes a lot more rigid and there will be virtually no movement relative to each side. In effect, you're adding the fourth side to the open box created by the subframe and the two suspension pillars.

Anti-roll Bars (Sway Bars/Stabilizers) No, these aren't the things that are bolted inside the car in case you turn it over - those are rollover cages. Anti-roll bars do precisely what their name implies - they combat the roll of a car on it's suspension as it corners. They're also known as sway-bars or antisway-bars. Almost all cars have them fitted as standard, and if you're a boy-racer, all have scope for improvement. From the factory they are biased towards ride comfort. Stiffer aftermarket items will increase the road-holding but you'll get reduced comfort because of it. It's a catch-22 situation. Fiddling with your roll stiffness distribution can make a car uncomfortable to ride in and extremely hard to handle if you get it wrong. The anti-roll bar is usually connected to the front, lower edge of the bottom suspension joint. It passes through two pivot points under the chassis, usually on the subframe and is attached to the same point on the opposite suspension setup. Effectively, it joins the bottom of the suspension parts together. When you head into a corner, the car begins to roll out of the corner. For example, if you're cornering to the left, the car body rolls to the right. In doing this, it's compressing the suspension on the right hand side. With a good anti-roll bar, as the lower part of the suspension moves upward relative to the car chassis, it transfers some of that movement to the same component on the other side. In effect, it tries to lift the left suspension component by the same amount. Because this isn't physically possible, the left suspension effectively becomes a fixed point and the anti-roll bar twists along its length because the other end is effectively anchored in place. It's this twisting that provides the resistance to the suspension movement. If you're loaded, you can buy cars with active anti-roll technology now. These sense the roll of the car into a corner and deflate the relevant suspension leg accordingly by pumping fluid in and out of the shock absorber. It's a high-tech, super expensive version of the good old mechanical anti-roll bar. You can buy anti-roll bars as an aftermarket add-on. They're relatively easy to fit because most cars have anti-roll bars already. Take the old one off and fit the new one. In the case of rear suspension, the fittings will probably already be there even if the anti-roll bar isn't. Typical anti-roll bar (swaybar) kits include the uprated bar, a set of new mounting clamps with polyurethane bushes, rose joints for the ends which connect to the suspension components, and all the bolts etc that will be needed. Suspension bushes These are the rubber grommets which separate most of the parts of your suspension from each other. They're used at the link of an A-Arm with the subframe. They're used on anti-roll bar links and mountings. They're used all over the place, and from the factory, I can almost guarantee they're made of rubber. Rubber doesn't last. It perishes in the cold and splits in the heat. Perished, split rubber was what brought the Challenger space shuttle down. This is one of those little parts which hardly anyone pays any attention to, but it's vitally important for your car's handling, as well as your own safety, that these little things are in good condition. My advice? Replace them with polyurethane or polygraphite bushes - they are hard-wearing and last a heck of a lot longer. And, if you're into presenting your car at shows, they look better than the naff little black rubber jobs. Like all suspension-related items though, bushes are a tradeoff between performance and comfort. The harder the bush compound, the less comfort in the cabin. You pays your money and makes your choice. Variable stiffness anti-roll bars

Some sportier vehicles have the capability to stiffen up the suspension for more aggressive handling by altering how the anti-roll bar behaves. The system itself isn't especially complex. Instead of simple rubber or urethane bushes to clamp the anti-roll bar to the frame of the car, these systems use a motor-driven or electromagnetically clamped bush instead. When the driver decides they want 'sport' mode, the car can increase the friction in the mounting bushes by clamping them more tightly around the anti-roll bar. This better resists the anti-roll bar's ability to twist across the width of the vehicle, which in turn provides more resistance at the ends where it joins the suspension components. The end result is that the suspension components have to take on a lot more load to deflect by the same amount. Or conversely, under the same load, they move less, thus stiffening up the suspension. The Ins and Outs of complex suspension units. Generally speaking, this section will be more relevant to you if you ride a motorbike, but you can get high-end spring / shock combos for cars that have all these features on them. The thing to realise is that if you're going to start messing with all these adjustments, for God's sake take a digital photo of the unit first, or somehow mark where it all started out. It's a slippery slope and you can very quickly bugger up the ride quality of your vehicle. If you don't know what the "stock" setting was, you'll never get it back. This is the damping that a shock absorber provides as it's being compressed, ie. as you hit a bump in the road. It's the resistance of the unit to alter from its steady state to its compressed state. Imagine you're riding along and you hit a bump. If there is too little compression damping, the wheel will not meet enough resistance as the suspension compresses. Not enough energy is dissipated by the time you reach the crest of the bump and because the wheel and other unsprung components have their own mass, the wheel will continue to move upwards. This unweights or unloads the tyre and in extreme cases, it can lose contact with the road. Either way, you briefly lose traction and control. The opposite is true if compression damping is too heavy. As the wheel encounters the bump in the road, the resistance to moving is high and so at the crest of the bump, the remaining energy from the upward motion through the shock absorber is transferred into the frame of the bike or the chassis of the car, lifting it up. Rebound damping. Go on - have a guess at what this is. Well in case you're not following along, this is the damping that a shock absorber provides as it returns from its compressed state to its steady state, ie. after you've crested the bump in the road. Too light, and the feeling of control in your vehicle is minimised because the wheel will move very quickly. The feeling is the soft, plush ride you find in a lot of American cars. Or mushy as we like to call it. Too heavy, and the shock absorber can't return quickly enough. As the contour of the road drops away after the bump, the wheel has a hard time "catching up". This can result in reduced traction, and a downward shift in the height of the vehicle. If that happens, you can overload the tyre when the weight of the vehicle bottoms-out the suspension. Damping controllers. High-end kit has controls on the shock absorber for both compression and rebound damping. Typically the rebound damping will be a screwdriver slot at the top of the shock absorber, and compression damping will be a knob either on the side or on the remote reservoir. Ultra-high-end kit has separate controls for high- and low-speed damping. ie. you can make the shock absorber behave differently over small bumps (low speed compression and rebound) than it does over large bumps (high speed compression and rebound). Of course you could buy yourself a nice big TV, a DVD player, dark curtains, a new couch and a year's supply of popcorn for the same cost as four of these units. Spring preload. Some motorbike suspension units, as well as some found on cars, give you the ability to alter the spring preload or pre-tension. This means that you're artificially compressing the spring a little which will alter the vehicle's static sag - the amount of suspension travel the vehicle consumes all by itself. For example, if you ride a motorbike on your own, the preload might work on the factory setup. But if you put a passenger on the back, the tendency is for the bike to sag because there's now more sprung weight. Increasing the preload on the spring plate will help compensate for this. Sprung vs. unsprung weight. Simply put, sprung weight is everything from the springs up, and unsprung weight is everything from the springs down. Wheels, shock absorbers, springs, knuckle joints and tyres contribute to the unsprung weight. The car, engine, fluids, you, your passenger, the kids, the bags of candy and the portable Playstation all contribute to the sprung weight. Reducing unsprung weight is the key to increasing performance of the car. If you can make the wheels, tyres and swingarms lighter, then the suspension will spend more time compensating for bumps in the road, and less time compensating for the mass of the wheels etc. The greater the unsprung weight, the greater the inertia of the suspension, which will be unable to respond as quickly to rapid changes in the road surface.

As an added benefit, putting lighter wheels on the car can increase your engine's apparent power. Why? Well the engine has to turn the gearbox and driveshafts, and at the end of that, the wheels and tyres. Heavier wheels and tyres require more torque to get turning, which saps engine power. Lighter wheels and tyres allow more of the engine's torque to go into getting you going than spinning the wheels. That's why sports cars have carbon fibre driveshafts and ultra light alloy wheels. Progressively wound springs These are the things to go for when you upgrade your springs. In actual fact, it's difficult not to get progressive springs when you upgrade - most of the aftermarket manufacturers make them like this. Most factory-fit car springs are normally wound. That is to say that their coil pitch stays the same all the way up the spring. If you get progressively wound springs, the coil pitch gets tighter the closer to the top of the spring you get. This has the effect of giving the spring increasing resistance, the more it is compressed. The spring constant (stiffness) of a coil spring equals: k = compression / force = D^4 * G / (64 *N*R^3)

where D is the wire diameter, G an elastic material property, N the number of coils in the spring, and R the radius of the spring. So increasing the number of coils decreases the stiffness of the spring. Thus, a progressive spring is progressive because the two parts are compressed equally until the tightly wound part locks up, effectively shortening the spring and reducing its compliance. So for normal driving, you'll be using mostly the upper 3 or 4 'tight' winds to soak up the average bumps and potholes. When you get into harder driving, like cornering at speed for example, because the springs are being compressed more, they resist more. The effect is to reduce the suspension travel at the top end resulting in less body roll, and better road-holding. Invariably, the fact that the springs are progressively wound is what accounts for the lowering factor. The springs aren't made shorter - they're just wound differently. Of course the material that aftermarket springs are made of is usually a higher grade than factory spec simply because it's going to be expected to handle more loads. Note:Make sure you get powder-coated springs! This means they've been treated with a good anti-corrosion system and then covered in powdered paint. The whole lot is then baked to make the paint seal and stick and bring out it's polyurethane elastic properties. It's the best type. If you just get normally painted springs, the paint will start to flake on the first bump, and surface rust will appear within days of the first sign of dampness. Not good. Besides powder coated springs look cool too! Torsion bars Torsion bars (or torsion rods) deserve their own section because they are a type of spring which can be used in place of coil- or leaf-springs. It's one of the topics I get the most email on, so instead of continually sending the same answer, I thought I'd cover it on this page. A torsion bar is a solid bar of steel which is connected to the car chassis at one end, and free to move at the other end. They can be mounted across the car (transverse like the rear suspension on the Peugeot 205 and Renault 16) or along the car (longitudinal, like the front suspension on the Morris Minor) - one for each side of the suspension. The springing motion is provided by the metal bar's resistance to twisting. To over-simplify, stick your arm out straight and get someone to twist your wrist. Presuming that your mate doesn't snap your wrist, at a certain point, resistance in your arm (and pain) will cause you to twist your wrist back the other way. That is the principle of a torsion bar. Torsion bars are normally locked to the chassis and the suspension parts with splined ends. This allows them to be removed, twisted round a few splines and re-inserted, which can be used to raise or lower a car, or to compensate for the natural 'sag' of a suspension system over time. They can be connected to just about any type of suspension system listed on this page. The rendering to the right shows an example longitudinal torsion bar. The small lever at the far end of the torsion bar would be attached solidly to the frame to provide the fixed end. The torsion bar itself fits into that lever and the suspension arm at the front through splined holes. As the suspension at the front moves upwards, the bar twists along its length providing the springing motion. I've left the shock absorber assembly out of this rendering for clarity.

Lift Kits

Because of the mechanical nature of suspension, all sorts of mods are available. Lifting suspension is a popular mod used to try to increase ground clearance. This is often a source of misunderstanding. A lift kit doesn't really give you more ground clearance. What it does is increase the height between the axle and the underside of the body. Whilst this does give more ground clearance for the bodywork, the lowest point on the vehicle is still the axles - or on a 4-wheel-drive, the bottom of the transfer case. For this reason, you'll often see trucks and SUVs with lift kits and larger wheels and tyres. The lift kit boosts the clearance under the bodywork whilst the larger wheels and tyres result in the axles being lifted higher off the ground. Technically of course, in a 4-wheel-drive, you don't really need a lift kit - bigger wheels and tyres would do it. BUT lift kits typically end up being required because adding on the larger wheels and tyres can often mean they will no longer fit in the wheel arches. The lift kit will help solve that problem.

Lift kits come in literally hundreds of shapes and sizes, all dependent on the final application as well as the design of the vehicle the kit is going to be used on. For street cars, typically with independent suspension, the kit will basically be longer struts, longer springs and remounted shocks. For off-roaders with beam axles and transfer cases, the suspension system is typically leaf-spring, so the kit will be a set of blocks that fit between the beam axle and the bottom of the leaf spring. Alternatively, some kits have blocks which lower the spring mounts themselves so that the spring-to-axle joint isn't changed. The images here show examples of a typical leaf-spring beam-axle suspension system along with two examples of how it can be raised. Fitting a lift kit is pretty basic engineering but it's really difficult to do without access to a hydraulic lift, so its best to either get a garage to do it, or to find a mechanic friend who has a decent sized hydraulic lift. Trying to mess with the suspension whilst a vehicle is on the ground is just asking for trouble. Lowering Kits The opposite of lift kits - lowering kits. These are designed to (wait for it....) lower your car. Also at the other end of the scale - lowering kits are almost exclusively used on cars, whereas lift kits are almost exclusively used on trucks and SUVs. (Having said that, the number of pimped-out low-rider trucks on the road does seem to be increasing by the day.) Lowering your car will similarly affect the handling, just like a lift kit. But again it's the opposite end of the spectrum - a lowered car will typically handle much better than factory suspension, and it will lower the centre of gravity, making it less likely to tip or roll in an accident. I'm a European, and as far as I'm concerned, if you're going for pose value, lowering your car is the quickest way to do it, hotly pursued by larger wheels and tyres to make the car appear even more ground-hugging. Lowering kits typically consist of shorter, stiffer springs and gas shocks - often nitrogen-filled. Don't do it by halves. Get a matched kit from someone like Spax or Jamex. Matched kits have springs and shocks designed to work together. If you get shorter springs, your factory shocks will be under a lot of stress because they'll be operating a much shorter throw than they were designed for, and ultimately, they'll normally fail much quicker. Similarly, don't get shorter shocks and cut the springs. Cutting the springs is the epitome of A Really Bad Idea. You're weakening the spring's structural integrity and the chances are that when you've finished a ham-fisted attempt at hacking off all 4 springs with a grinder, the result will be 4 springs all slightly different lengths. There's something else worth mentioning here - do not try to disassemble a shock absorber. Ever. Those things are like little bombs, and unless you have all the right tools, you could easily loose a hand as the shock explodes into its component parts when you get that last twist off the collar. Please - just don't. I know your mate Guido might have told you it's a "sure fire" way to shorten the shock, but he's lying. Matched lowering kits typically assume you're going for sportier handling, so a lot of times, you'll get a whole slew of new adjustments which you never had before. Spring height, rebound damping, compression damping etc.

Specialized Suspensions: Formula One Racers

Formula One racecar The Formula One racing car represents the pinnacle of automobile innovation and evolution. Lightweight, composite bodies, powerful V10 engines and advanced aerodynamics have led to faster, safer and more reliable cars. To elevate driver skill as the key differentiating factor in a race, stringent rules and requirements govern Formula One racecar design. For example, the rules regulating suspension design say that all Formula One racers must be conventionally sprung, but they don't allow computer-controlled, active suspensions. To accommodate this, the cars feature multi-link suspensions, which use a multi-rod mechanism equivalent to a double-wishbone system. Recall that a double-wishbone design uses two wishbone-shaped control arms to guide each wheel's up-and-down motion. Each arm has three mounting positions -- two at the frame and one at the wheel hub -- and each joint is hinged to guide the wheel's motion. In all cars, the primary benefit of a double-wishbone suspension is control. The geometry of the arms and the elasticity of the joints give engineers ultimate control over the angle of the wheel and other vehicle dynamics, such as lift, squat and dive. Unlike road cars, however, the shock absorbers and coil springs of a Formula One racecar don't mount directly to the control arms. Instead, they are oriented along the length of the car and are controlled remotely through a series of pushrods and bell cranks. In such an arrangement, the pushrods and bell cranks translate the up-and-down motions of the wheel to the back-and-forth movement of the spring-and-damper apparatus. Specialized Suspensions: Hot Rods

Photo courtesy Street Rod Central 1923 T-bucket The classic American hot rod era lasted from 1945 to about 1965. Like Baja Bugs, classic hot rods required significant modification by their owners. Unlike Bugs, however, which are built on Volkswagen chassis, hot rods were built on a variety of old, often historical, car models: Cars manufactured before 1945 were considered ideal fodder for hot rod transformations because

their bodies and frames were often in good shape, while their engines and transmissions needed to be replaced completely. For hot rod enthusiasts, this was exactly what they wanted, for it allowed them to install more reliable and powerful engines, such as the flathead Ford V8 or the Chevrolet V8. One popular hot rod was known as the T-bucket because it was based on the Ford Model T. The stock Ford suspension on the front of the Model T consisted of a solid I-beam front axle (a dependent suspension), a U-shaped buggy spring (leaf spring) and a wishbone-shaped radius rod with a ball at the rear end that pivoted in a cup attached to the transmission. Ford's engineers built the Model T to ride high with a large amount of suspension movement, an ideal design for the rough, primitive roads of the 1930s. But after World War II, hot rodders began experimenting with larger Cadillac or Lincoln engines, which meant that the wishboneshaped radius rod was no longer applicable. Instead, they removed the center ball and bolted the ends of the wishbone to the framerails. This "split wishbone" design lowered the front axle about 1 inch (2.5 cm) and improved vehicle handling. Lowering the axle more than an inch required a brand-new design, which was supplied by a company known as Bell Auto. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Bell Auto offered dropped tube axles that lowered the car a full 5 inches (13 cm). Tube axles were built from smooth, steel tubing and balanced strength with superb aerodynamics. The steel surface also accepted chrome plating better than the forged I-beam axles, so hot rodders often preferred them for their aesthetic qualities, as well. Some hot rod enthusiasts, however, argued that the tube axle's rigidity and inability to flex compromised how it handled the stresses of driving. To accommodate this, hot rodders introduced the four-bar suspension, using two mounting points on the axle and two on the frame. At each mounting point, aircraft-style rod ends provided plenty of movement at all angles. The result? The four-bar system improved how the suspension worked in all sorts of driving conditions.

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