Leaf springs can be hard or soft. Cognitive bias is scary
Leaf springs can be hard or soft. Cognitive bias is scary
I don't know when the leaf spring suspension of the rear axle of the leather car became bound to the cheap, rough, hauling properties. In fact, the performance of the multi-link suspension can be achieved, especially comfort and sports, and the suspension of the leaf spring can also be achieved.
In the traditional introduction, the leaf spring is a very outdated design, driving texture is poor, but the leaf spring suspension actually has many categories and versions, loading is only one of them. This issue will focus on the structure, advantages and disadvantages of multi-link suspension and integral bridge, and analyze the characteristics of the two structures.
Plate springs appeared as early as the Roman Empire as a primitive form of suspension for chariots and other two-wheelers. The shrewd Romans did not use steel, but a flexible stick. It wasn't until 1804 that a young inventor named Obadia Eliot designed a steel version. His leaf spring, made of two steel plates stacked on top of each other, helped smooth carriage rides. Before that, carriages without suspension systems were very bumpy to ride.
In the passenger pickup trucks have changed the leaf spring to multi-link suspension today, in the end is the advantage of multi-link suspension is too obvious, or the market's cognition of the leaf spring is biased, the major brands in order to cater to consumers in the country so actively try. Let's talk about it.
What is a leaf spring?
Multi-link rod and leaf spring are the two suspension modes of integral axle. The leaf spring, as the name suggests, is to fix multiple steel plates together with U-shaped slots and bolts, both ends of the steel plate are fixed on the girder, and the center of the steel plate is linked to the axle. The longitudinal multi-plate plate is the most used form at present, and the horizontal single-plate leaf spring is rarely used in the application models, such as Corvette C7 and Volvo S90. The horizontal multi-plate plate mostly exists in the early automobile design. Like the Ford Model T.
Leaf springs have other structures such as single-point and series-connected, which are used in multi-axis special fields. In daily pickup truck models, leaf spring suspension also has bridge spring and bridge spring. As the name suggests, the bridge spring is fixed on the axle, and this layout can increase the height and passability of the body, which is very common in the field of passenger use, such as the old raptor, smooth road and other models. Underbridge spring is a leaf spring installed under the axle, which can reduce the height of the body and is used in the field of commercial pickup trucks.
The advantage of steel plate suspension is that the structure is simple, solid and reliable, and the number of steel plates can be increased to increase the load under heavy load requirements. The disadvantage is that the suspension is hard when the load is unloaded, and the comfort is difficult to guarantee, and because the suspension is composed of multiple steel plates, the installation of the leaf spring needs to occupy a larger body space.
The characteristics of the leaf spring - can be soft and hard
The soft and hard of the leaf spring is determined by two aspects, the number of pieces of the steel plate and the damping of the shock absorber, the reason why the traditional pickup truck gives a poor feeling of comfort is because it was developed for the freight demand at the beginning of research and development. Under the premise of emphasizing the load, the rigidity of the suspension and the damping damping must be large enough, otherwise it is easy to cause the damage of the damping bottom and the steel plate in the heavy load through the bumpy section.
In other words, the inherent cognition and use of the environment did not give the leaf spring the opportunity to play its own advantages, but with the use of pickup trucks, new products are eager to reduce the characteristics of the truck, in this context, the leaf spring has become a passenger pickup smell color change, although there are many advantages, but still can not change the stereotype of the market.
The leaf spring has many advantages that are born with, and the friction between multiple steel plates can form damping, converting the kinetic energy of the bumps into the internal energy of the steel plate through friction, which is equivalent to a small "shock absorber". Second, the leaf spring provides sufficient adhesion, and second, the leaf spring can inhibit roll and provide dynamic characteristics of oversteering, which are desirable in many suspension designs.
The leaf spring can also reduce the interference between the rear axle and the wheel, which is very critical in high-speed off-road, because the leaf spring suspension is the use of its own elastic deformation to withstand the jumping of the axle, so the movement trajectory is close to the vertical movement, and the multi-link suspension due to structural reasons, when the suspension moves up and down, the axle will inevitably rotate in the direction of the wheel rolling. This leads to interference. There is no need to worry, however, as the interference is minimal and only occurs when driving very fast on large rolling roads.
The same model can be matched with a different number of pieces and materials of the leaf spring, just like in the field of passenger cars, the shock absorber can adjust the damping and replace the spring with different K values, there are multi-piece versions for cargo, there are fewer pieces of the version can provide very good comfort.
Leaf springs are widely used in early cars because of their simple structure and durable leather, but with the increasing integration of cars and the demand for space utilization, they now only exist in hard SUVs, pickups and trucks with large chassis space. This is not because the leaf spring can not meet the comfort requirements of passenger cars, more because of space and development costs, coil springs can provide higher concentration to meet the requirements of modular development.
Therefore, do not think that the leaf spring suspension can only pull goods, because of the advantages of its simple structure and light weight, many overall bridge racing cars have used this suspension, perhaps for practical considerations, "plate spring" is not so unbearable.
