Many different systems exist under the hood to ensure a vehicle functions properly. The suspension system ensures that the vehicle can handle bumps, dips and anything else that’s encountered during a drive.
The suspension system is composed of several parts that all play a role in stabilizing and controlling a vehicle. Keep reading to find out how the suspension works and why it’s important to maintain.
Car suspensions are designed to help maximize the amount of friction between the tires and the road. This helps make car rides more comfortable, as well as ensure there is steering stability and good handling for the driver.
Roads are filled with imperfections, so a suspension system must be designed to handle these and support a vehicle. The suspension helps absorb energy from the tires to allow the body and frame of the car to remain stable.
According to vehicle dynamics, the car’s ride is the ability to smooth out a bumpy road, and a car’s handling allows it to safely accelerate, corner and brake. Principles known as road isolation, road holding and cornering are important to understand — and are why the suspension system is so important.
The suspension system and the parts included in it help solve the challenges associated with those principles and help ensure a smooth and safe ride.
The suspension system is part of the chassis, which is the framework and underpart of a vehicle. The body of a car is mounted to the chassis. Many components make up the suspension system, including:
These are just a few of the main parts of a vehicle’s suspension system, all of which play important roles in keeping things functioning properly.
Just like there are many different suspension parts, there are also different kinds of suspension systems. Most vehicles use different suspensions for the front and back wheels. Typically, the two front wheels are connected by the front axle and the two rear wheels are connected by the rear axle.
There are two types of suspension systems: dependent and independent. Dependent systems utilize a rigid axle, while independent systems allow wheels to move independently.
Different parts of the suspension system can wear out or become damaged. It’s important to pay attention to potential signs that a part needs to be repaired or replaced. Some common things to look for include:
Taking your vehicle to a trained technician when you notice these problems can help you get repairs when you need them. Interested in learning more about why suspension damage can happen? Check out our blog on the subject here.
In the 51-week Automotive Technology program offered at Universal Technical Institute, you can get the training and education needed for an entry-level career in the industry.1
Learn the fundamentals to repair and maintain vehicles, including experience working on suspensions during the Vehicle Steering and Suspension Service and Repair course. Our relationships with more than 35 leading brands can help give you access to state-of-the-industry technology while you train, as well as opportunities to connect with manufacturers as a graduate.
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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.
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If a road was 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.
"" The suspension on your car maximizes friction between the tires and road and provides steering stability.© 2018 HowStuffWorks
Without an intervening structure, all of the wheel's vertical energy is transferred to the frame, which moves in the same direction. In such a situation, the tires can lose contact with the road completely. Then, under the downward force of gravity, the tires 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 tires 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.
"" This table describes road isolation, road holding and road cornering.© 2018 HowStuffWorks
A car's suspension, with its various components, provides all of the solutions described.
Let's look at the parts of a typical suspension, working from the bigger picture of the chassis down to the individual components that make up the suspension proper.
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