Air Suspension Working Principle and Technical Solution Analysis

Air suspension system is an advanced product popular in the automobile industry in developed countries today. In developed countries, 100% of medium-sized and above passenger cars use air suspension systems, and more than 40% of trucks, trailers and tractors use air suspension systems.

Its biggest advantage is that it can not only improve the ride comfort of the occupants, but also play an important role in protecting the road.

1. The working principle of air suspension

The sensor transmits the collected signal to the control unit, and the control unit sends instructions to adjust the air spring hardness and shock absorber damping after calculation, so as to achieve the most ideal elastic state. The reaction time of this seemingly complex process in the whole system is only tens of microseconds. Therefore, the air suspension system can respond timely and appropriately to every tiny movement of the wheels.

Of course, compared with the traditional suspension, due to the complex structure of the air-type adjustable suspension, the probability and frequency of its failure will be higher than that of the coil spring suspension system, and the air is used as the power source for adjusting the height of the chassis, the sealing of related components is also a problem. In addition, if the height of the chassis is adjusted frequently, it may cause local overheating of the air pump system, which will greatly shorten the service life of the air pump.

Of course, with the continuous improvement of the technical level, many problems have been well resolved, and at the same time, the applied models are becoming more and more extensive.

2. Technical solution of air suspension

The basic technical solution of the air suspension mainly includes two parts: an air spring with compressed air inside and a shock absorber with variable damping. Compared with the traditional steel car suspension system, the air suspension has many advantages, the most important point is that the elastic coefficient of the spring, that is, the softness and hardness of the spring, can be automatically adjusted according to the needs.

For example, when driving at high speed, the suspension can be stiffened to improve the stability of the vehicle body. When driving at low speed for a long time, the control unit will think that it is passing a bumpy road, and the air suspension can be softened to improve the comfort of shock absorption.

In addition, the acceleration caused by the impact of the wheels on the ground is also one of the parameters considered when the air spring is automatically adjusted. For example, when cornering at high speed, the air springs and shock absorbers of the outer wheels will automatically harden to reduce the roll of the body. During emergency braking, the electronic module will also strengthen the springs and shock absorbers of the front wheels to reduce the inertia of the body forward. Therefore, models equipped with air springs have higher handling limits and comfort than other cars.

The air suspension also incorporates traditional chassis lift technology into it. When driving at high speed, the height of the vehicle body is automatically lowered, thereby improving the performance of sticking to the ground, ensuring good high-speed driving stability and reducing wind resistance and fuel consumption. When passing a bumpy road at a slow speed, the chassis is automatically raised to improve passing performance.

In addition, the air suspension system can also automatically maintain the level of the vehicle body, regardless of no load or full load, the vehicle body height can be constant, so that under any load condition, the spring travel of the suspension system can be kept constant, so that the shock absorption characteristics will basically not change. affected. So even when fully loaded, the body is easy to control. This is indeed a leap forward in platform technology.