英文资料Suspension Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels. Suspension systems serve a dual purpose contributing to the cars roadholding/handling and braking for good active safety and driving pleasure, and keeping vehicle occupants comfortable and reasonably well isolated from road noise, bumps, and vibrations,etc. These goals are generally at odds, so the tuning of suspensions involves finding the right compromise. It is important for the suspension to keep the road wheel in contact with the road surface as much as possible, because all the forces acting on the vehicle do so through the contact patches of the tires. The suspension also protects the vehicle itself and any cargo or luggage from damage and wear. The design of front and rear suspension of a car may be different.Leaf springs have been around since the early Egyptians.Ancient military engineers used leaf springs in the form of bows to power their siege engines, with little success at first. The use of leaf springs in catapults was later refined and made to work years later. Springs were not only made of metal, a sturdy tree branch could be used as a spring, such as with a bow.Horse drawn vehiclesBy the early 19th century most British horse carriages were equipped with springs; wooden springs in the case of light one-horse vehicles to avoid taxation, and steel springs in larger vehicles. These were made of low-carbon steel and usually took the form of multiple layer leaf springs.1The British steel springs were not well suited for use on Americas rough roads of the time, and could even cause coaches to collapse if cornered too fast. In the 1820s, the Abbot Downing Company of Concord, New Hampshire developed a system whereby the bodies of stagecoaches were supported on leather straps called thoroughbraces, which gave a swinging motion instead of the jolting up and down of a spring suspension (the stagecoach itself was sometimes called a thoroughbrace)AutomobilesAutomobiles were initially developed as self-propelled versions of horse drawn vehicles. However, horse drawn vehicles had been designed for relatively slow speeds and their suspension was not well suited to the higher speeds permitted by the internal combustion engine.In 1903 Mors of Germany first fitted an automobile with shock absorbers. In 1920 Leyland used torsion bars in a suspension system. In 1922 independent front suspension was pioneered on the Lancia Lambda and became more common in mass market cars from 1932.2Important propertiesSpring rateThe spring rate (or suspension rate) is a component in setting the vehicles ride height or its location in the suspension stroke. Vehicles which carry heavy loads will often have heavier springs to compensate for the additional weight that would otherwise collapse a vehicle to the bottom of its travel (stroke). Heavier springs are also used in performance applications where the loading conditions experienced are more extreme.Springs that are too hard or too soft cause the suspension to become ineffective because they fail to properly isolate the vehicle from the road. Vehicles that commonly experience suspension loads heavier than normal have heavy or hard springs with a spring rate close to the upper limit for that vehicles weight. This allows the vehicle to perform properly under a heavy load when control is limited by the inertia of the load. Riding in an empty truck used for carrying loads can be uncomfortable for passengers because of its high spring rate relative to the weight of the vehicle. A race car would also be described as having heavy springs and would also be uncomfortably bumpy. However, even though we say they both have heavy springs, the actual spring rates for a 2000lb race car and a 10,000lb truck are very different. A luxury car, taxi, or passenger bus would be described as having soft springs. Vehicles with worn out or damaged springs ride lower to the ground which reduces the overall amount of compression available to the suspension and increases the amount of body lean. Performance vehicles can sometimes have spring rate requirements other than vehicle weight and load.Mathematics of the spring rateSpring rate is a ratio used to measure how resistant a spring is to being compressed or expanded during the springs deflection. The magnitude of the spring force increases as deflection increases according to Hookes Law. Briefly, this can be stated aswhereF is the force the spring exerts k is the spring rate of the spring. x is the displacement from equilibrium length i.e. the length at which the spring is neither compressed or stretched. Spring rate is confined to a narrow interval by the weight of the vehicle,load the vehicle will carry, and to a lesser extent by suspension geometry and performance desires.Spring rates typically have units of N/mm (or lbf/in). An example of a linear sp