Types of shock absorbers edit
Most vehicular shock absorbers are either twin-tube or mono-tube types with some variations on these themes.
Twin-tube edit
Basic twin-tube edit
Also known as a "two-tube" shock absorber, this device consists of two nested cylindrical tubes, an inner tube that is called the "working tube" or the "pressure tube", and an outer tube called the "reserve tube". At the bottom of the device on the inside is a compression valve or base valve. When the piston is forced up or down by bumps in the road, hydraulic fluid moves between different chambers via small holes or "orifices" in the piston and via the valve , converting the "shock" energy into heat which must then be dissipated.
Twin-tube gas charged edit
Variously known as a "gas cell two-tube" or similarly-named design, this variation represented a significant advancement over the basic twin-tube form. Its overall structure is very similar to the twin-tube, but a low-pressure charge of nitrogen gas is added to the reserve tube. The result of this alteration is a dramatic reduction in "foaming" or "aeration", the undesirable outcome of a twin-tube overheating and failing which presents as foaming hydraulic fluid dripping out of the assembly. Twin-tube gas charged shock absorbers represent the vast majority of original vehicle suspensions installations.
Position sensitive damping edit
Often abbreviated simply as "PSD", this design is another evolution of the twin-tube shock. In a PSD shock absorber, which still consists of two nested tubes and still contains nitrogen gas, a set of grooves has been added to the pressure tube. These grooves allow the piston to move relatively freely in the middle range of travel (i.e., the most common street or highway use, called by engineers the "comfort zone") and to move with significantly less freedom in response to shifts to more irregular surfaces when upward and downward movement of the piston starts to occur with greater intensity (i.e., on bumpy sections of roads— the stiffening gives the driver greater control of movement over the vehicle so its range on either side of the comfort zone is called the "control zone"). This advance allowed car designers to make a shock absorber tailored to specific makes and models of vehicles and to take into account a given vehicle's size and weight, its maneuverability, its horsepower, etc. in creating a correspondingly effective shock.
Acceleration sensitive damping edit
The next phase in shock absorber evolution was the development of a shock absorber that could sense and respond to not just situational changes from "bumpy" to "smooth" but to individual bumps in the road in a near instantaneous reaction. This was achieved through a change in the design of the compression valve, and has been termed "acceleration sensitive damping" or "ASD". Not only does this result in a complete disappearance of the "comfort vs. control" tradeoff, it also reduced pitch during vehicle braking and roll during turns. However, ASD shocks are usually only available as aftermarket changes to a vehicle and are only available from a limited number of manufacturers.
Coilover edit
For main article see Coilover
Coilover shock absorbers are a kind of twin-tube gas charged shock absorber around which has been mounted a large metal lowering spring. Though common on motorcycle and scooter rear suspensions, coilover shocks are uncommon in original equipment designs for vehicles, though they have become widely available as aftermarket add-ons. Coilover shocks for cars have been considered specialty items for high performance and racing applications where they allow for significant reductions in overall vehicle height, and though high-quality aftermarket options with wide sturdy springs may provide improvements in vehicle performance, there is dispute over whether or not most aftermarket coilover shocks confer any material benefits to most drivers and may in fact reduce performance over original equipment installations.
Mono-tube edit
The principal design alternative to the twin-tube form has been the mono-tube shock absorber. As its name implies, the mono-tube shock, which is also a gas-pressurized shock, consists of only one tube, the pressure tube, though it has two pistons. These pistons are called the working piston and the diving piston, and they move in relative synchrony inside the pressure tube in response to changes in road smoothness. The two pistons also completely separate the shock's fluid and gas components. The mono-tube shock absorber is consistently a much longer overall design than the twin-tubes, making it difficult to mount in passenger cars designed for twin-tube shocks. However, unlike the twin-tubes, the mono-tube shock can be mounted either way— it does not have any directionality. It also does not have a compression valve, whose role has been take up by the dividing piston, and although it contains nitrogen gas, the gas in a mono-tube shock is under high pressure (360 p.s.i. or so) which can actually help it to support some of the vehicle's weight, something which no other shock absorber is designed to do.