Automobile Suspensions (PDF)

This book is an introduction to the elementary technology of automobile suspensions. Inevitably steering geometry must be included in the text, since the dynamic steering behaviour, road-holding and cornering behaviour are all influenced by the suspension design. Steering mechanisms and steering components are not covered in this book. This is not a mathematical treatise, but only a fool or a genius would attempt to design a motor vehicle without mathematics. The mathematics used in this book should present no problem to a first-year university student. SI units have been used in general, but for the benefit of those not familiar with them we have included in brackets, in many cases, the equivalent values in Imperial units. Many engineers regard the Pascal as an impractical unit of pressure. The author has therefore expressed pressures in bars (1 bar = 105Pa). A deviation from SI units is the use of degrees and minutes, instead of radians, to express camber, castor, roll angles, etc. This is still common practice in the motor industry. No attempt has been made to make any stress calculations on suspension components. The automobile engineering student will have access to other textbooks on such subjects as strength of materials and theory of structures.