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Suspension
Suspension
Springs
These come in three types. They are coil springs, torsion bars and leaf springs.
Coil springs are what most people are familiar with, and are actually coiled
torsion bars. Leaf springs are what you would find on most American cars up to
about 1985 and almost all heavy duty vehicles. They look like layers of metal
connected to the axle. The layers are called leaves, hence leaf-spring. The
torsion bar on its own is a bizarre little contraption which gives coiled-spring-like
performance based on the twisting properties of a steel bar. It's used in the
suspension of VW Beetles and Karmann Ghias, air-cooled Porsches (356 and
911 until 1989 when they went to springs), and the rear suspension of Peugeot
205s amongst other cars. Instead of having a coiled spring, the axle is attached
to one end of a steel shaft. The other end is slotted into a tube and held there by
splines. As the suspension moves, it twists the shaft along it's length, which in
turn resist. Now image that same shaft but instead of being straight, it's coiled
up. As you press on the top of the coil, you're actually inducing a twisting in the
shaft, all the way down the coil. I know it's hard to visualize, but believe me,
that's what is happening. There's a whole section further down the page
specifically on torsion bars and progressive springs.
Shock absorbers
Strangely enough, absorb shocks. Actually, shock absorbers are one of those
great misnomers in life. They're really called dampers, because they actually
dampen the vertical motion induced by driving your car along a rough surface. If
your car only had springs, it would boat and wallow along the road until you got
physically sick and had to get out. Or at least until it fell apart. Shock absorbers
perform two functions. Firstly, they absorb any larger-than-average bumps in the
road so that the shock isn't transmitted to the car chassis. Secondly, they keep
the suspension at as full a travel as possible for the given road conditions.
Shock absorbers keep your wheels planted on the road. Without them, your car
Suspension Types
In their infinite wisdom, car manufacturers have set out to baffle use with the
sheer number of different types of suspension available for both front and rear
axles. The main groupings are dependant and independent suspension types. If
you know of any not listed here, e-mail me and let me know - I would like this
page to be as complete as possible.
Weight - or more specifically unsprung weight. Solid front axles weigh a ton
and need huge springs 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. I frequently get pulled-up
on the above statements from people jumping to defend solid-axle suspension.
They usually send me pictures like this and claim it's the
best suspension system for off-road use. I have to admit,
for off-road stuff, it probably is pretty good. But let's face it;
how many people with these vehicles ever go off-road?
The closest they come to having maximum wheel
deflection is when the mother double- parks the thing with
one wheel on the kerb during the school-run.......
MacPherson strut
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-type spring and shock absorber combo, which pivots on a ball joint on
the single, lower arm. At the top end 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 performing their duty as
oppose to actually holding the car up. In the rendered image here, you can't see
the shock absorber because it is encased in the blue strut tower, inside the
spring. The steering gear is either connected directly to the lower shock
absorber housing, or to an arm from the front or back of the spindle (in this
case). When you steer, it physically twists the 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 to take place.
If the spring or this plate are 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.
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....
The following four types of system are all essentially a variation on the
same theme.
Coil Spring type 1
This is a type of double-A arm suspension. The wheel spindles (purple) are
supported by an upper and lower 'A' shaped arms (green). If you look head-on
at this type of system, what you'll find is that it's a very basic lever 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 which the levers scribe
around their pivot point. This side-toside 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 tires. Also note that
the springs/shocks in this example are
in a so-called 'coil over oil'
arrangement whereby the shock
absorbers (yellow) sit inside the springs (red).
Double Wishbone
So-called because the lower and
upper arms are the shape of
wishbones. Yes I know they don't
look like wishbones here, but
believe me, they are. The spindle
is a highly complex construction in
this system, as are the wishbones
themselves. This rapidly becoming
one of the most favoured
suspension types for new cars as
it gives excellent road-holding
capabilities whilst taking up very
little room under the car. This
allows for smoother lines on the
bodywork, and less intrusion in to
the engine bay. A 3D rendering
such as that on the right does not
do this system any justice. To really appreciate it, you need to get your head in a
wheel well and have a look. And I know a few mechanics who've still not been
able to figure it out even then.
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 few variations on this theme
appearing at the moment, with differences in the
numbers of joints, numbers of arms, positioning of the
parts etc. But they are all fundamentally the same.
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-trailing-arm systems
and work on exactly the same principle as the
arms in the coil spring type systems described
above. The difference is that instead of the arms
sticking out from the side of the chassis, they
travel back along it. 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. It's used mostly in older
cars and beach buggies now.
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 lower image).
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-sports car. Ultimately, Moulton rubber
suspension is now used in a lot of bicycles - racing and
mountain bikes. Due to the compact design and the
simplicity of its operation and maintenance, it's an ideal
solution.
Simple, not particularly elegant, but cheap. The main drawback with this
arrangement is the lack of lateral location for the axle.
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 'coil-overoil' spring and shock combos.
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. A variation on this has
the shock absorbers separate
from the springs, allowing much
smaller 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. Also at the
ends, the springs and
shock absorbers are
attached. 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 the rear corner
of the beam to a point either just in front of the opposite corner, or in this case,
above the opposite spring mount. 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 this system, 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 beam supports. 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 left
here, and parallel, shown on the right. 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 perpendicular 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 4link 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.
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, giving a controlled,
vertical, but level motion to the car. 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, and a
softer more comfortable ride at 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 1965 and you'd be lucky to find a unit
today that has had any work done to it.
The image below shows a typical lateral installation for hydrolastic rear
suspension. The purple structure is the subframe, the green parts are the
suspension swingarms, and the red cylinders are 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.
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-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 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.
Hydropneumatic Suspension
Since the late forties, Citron have been running a fundamentally different
system to the rest of the auto industry. They call it hydropneumatic and it
encompasses features as diverse as brakes, suspension & steering. As its
name may suggest, its core technology and mainstay of its functionality is
hydraulics. Superbly smooth suspension is provided by the fluid's interaction with a
fluid acting on
the diaphragm in the sphere gets its force from, and to do that we are going to
have to look at
the operation of the other key component in the Citron system - the strut.
As you can see in this diagram, the strut has a sphere on top of it and the strut
in itself acts like a syringe to inject fluid into the sphere. When the wheel hits a
bump it rises, pushes the piston of the strut back and this squeezes fluid through
the tiny hole in the sphere to let the gas spring absorb the energy of the bump.
Then when the car is over the bump and its time to let the wheel back down, the
gas pushes the diaphragm back out, pushing the fluid down to the strut, pushing
the wheel down to the ground. Some interesting possibilities were opened up by
the company deciding to use this system to spring their cars. One or two of the
more obvious ones are that since the system is hydraulic, the ride height can
easily be altered, a trend low riders are now following on with in California,
nearly fifty years later. Also, they could link the four corners together to make a
system that prepared the car for the bump to keep it even and offer the
passengers a smoother ride. Basically they put fancy valves called height
correctors on the anti-roll bar. These were mounted in such a way that as the
suspension twisted, this operated the valves that controlled the transfer of fluid
to the struts. It was possible to isolate the front and rear systems and have the
front suspension set at a height which required 'x' litres. So when the front
nearside wheel takes a knock compressing its sphere, x/2 L is lost in the sphere,
then the height correctors allow another x/2 L in, to inflate the offside strut by
that much. This keeps the front of the car level in a horizontal plane.
As the car clears the bump, the reverse happens; the sphere displaces that
fluid, the strut returns to its own height pulling the anti roll bar back true with it
which in turn tells the height corrector to lose that extra x/2 litres of fluid from the
other side. As one side extends its strut in reaction to clearing the bump, the
other is retracting by the same amount to return the car to its set height above
the road. Neat huh?
A further mechanical advantage of hydraulic suspension is that the car is able to
link its braking effort to the weight on the wheels. In the Citron BX, the rear
braking effort comes from the pressure exerted on the LHM fluid by the weight
on those struts. This means that as the weight travels forward under braking,
there is less pressure on the back suspension. The suspension is the able to
exert less pressure on its fluid, and as weight and grip diminish on the wheels,
so does the braking effort, thus the hydropneumatic system preventsrear wheel
lock ups.
In addition to these benefits, Citron pioneered computer controlled suspension
in the early nineties by inserting a computer to take readings from the cars'
chassis and control systems and let the computer make informed decisions
about how to handle the cars suspension. The computer could then effect these
decisions by things like servo valves, and offered benefits like soft suspension
for cruising, but stiffer, sportier suspension for faster harder driving, allowing the
driver to cruise in comfort and still enjoy a responsive car. It also moves
substantially towards eliminating body roll and if used for a sportier driver will
save tyre wear as well (they claim).
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 and
pioneered by the Racing For Holland Dome S101 sports car team. In the image
below you can see both the traditional coil over 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 Citron uses because this system
doesn't use a pump and has less than a litre of hydraulic fluid in the entire
system. More news on this development as I get it.
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 (sway bar) kits include the upgraded 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 sub
frame. 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.
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, i.e. after you've crested the bump in the road. Too light,
and the feeling of control in your vehicle is minimized 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. i.e. 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.
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.