Task car’s suspension is to maximize the friction between tire and road surface, to provide steering stability with good handling and to ensure passenger comfort. In this article, we’ll explore how car suspensions work, how they have evolved over the years and in which the suspension design-led future.

If a perfectly flat road, with no irregularities, suspensions would not be necessary. But the road is far from flat. Even newly paved road has subtle imperfections that can interact with a car wheel. 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 amount, of course, depends on whether the giant wheel striking a bump or small spots. Either way, the wheels of the car experience vertical acceleration as it passes through the imperfections.
During the car suspension vertical and horizontal acceleration

Without the intervention of the structure, all-wheel vertical energy is transferred to the frame, which moves in the same direction. In such situations, the wheels can lose contact with the road completely. Then, under the force of gravity downward, the wheels can slam back into the road surface. All you need is a system that will absorb energy from the vertically accelerated wheel, frame and allows the body to ride undisturbed while the wheels follow bumps in the road.

The study of the forces acting on a moving car called vehicle dynamics, and you need to understand some of these concepts in order to appreciate why the suspension is necessary in the first place. Most auto engineers consider the dynamics of a moving car from two perspectives:

* Ride – the ability of cars to smooth out a bumpy road
* Handling – the ability to accelerate the safe car, brake and corner