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Suspension
A simple test for cars with an extremely dropped suspension
One makes two spacers, e,g., from wood and with their help, one holds a perectly normal spirit-level on the top- and bottom
parts of the rim-flange (front wheel). Ask a few friends now, to carefully press down on the respective mudguard, the wheel must take a negative camber (the top goes inwards), this can be seen by the bubble in the
spirit-level. Should this not be the case, then the dropped suspension is worse than the standard. Should the mudguard hardly move downwards at all, then instead of expensive shock absorbers, one might as well
have used iron bars. |
Assignment
The suspension should ensure that as much of the surface of the tyre-tread as possible should be in contact with the road. Apart from that, it should also ensure that uncontrollable situations for the driver are avoided.
Function
Rigid axles are still generally used in trucks and off-road vehicles, whereby, the wheels of one axle are connected to each other then together are mounted onto the frame. Passenger cars nearly always have
independent suspension. The wheels have, independent of each other, individual springs and shock absorbers and they are guided by transverse links, trailing arms, semi-trailing arms or multiple trailing arms. As
far as the motorcycle is concerned, the banking, and thereby, the braking- and thrust forces when cornering are especially important.
Travelling in a straight line, despite the angled front wheels (inclination angle
greater on the front than on the rear), is called understeer, the breaking out of the rear is called oversteer. In both cases the axle with better road contact should, in favour of a more neutral handling, slightly worsen (for
a short time) if possible.
For the constructor, the best conditions are present, when the unsprung mass, compared with the sprung mass, is as
low as possible. This is the reason, why the application of aluminium in parts of the suspension is doubly advantageous. 04/17
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