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.
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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.
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Coil springs are the most common type of spring and they are, in essence, a heavy-duty torsion bar coiled around an axis. Coil springs compress and expand to absorb the motion of the wheels.
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Cornering is the ability of a vehicle to travel a curved path. The goal is to minimize body roll, which occurs as centrifugal force pushes outward on a car's center of gravity while cornering, raising one side of the vehicle and lowering the opposite side.
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Shock absorbers work in two cycles -- the compression cycle and the extension cycle. The compression cycle occurs as the piston moves downward, compressing the hydraulic fluid in the chamber below the piston. The extension cycle occurs as the piston moves toward the top of the pressure tube, compressing the fluid in the chamber above the piston.
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Road isolation is the vehicle's ability to absorb or isolate road shock from the passenger compartment. The goal is to allow the vehicle body to ride undisturbed while traveling over rough roads.
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All modern shock absorbers are velocity-sensitive -- the faster the suspension moves, the more resistance the shock absorber provides. This enables shocks to adjust to road conditions and to control all of the unwanted motions that can occur in a moving vehicle, including bounce, sway, brake dive and acceleration squat.
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Road handling is the degree to which a car maintains contact with the road surface in various types of directional changes and in a straight line. The goal is to keep the tires in contact with the ground, because it is the friction between the tires and the road that affects a vehicle's ability to steer, brake and accelerate.
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The MacPherson strut, developed by Earle S. MacPherson of General Motors in 1947, is the most widely used front suspension system, especially in cars of European origin.
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The sprung mass is the mass of the vehicle supported on the springs, while the unsprung mass is loosely defined as the mass between the road and the suspension springs.
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