Picture this: You’re driving down the highway in your vehicle, well within the designated speed limit. All at once however, your vehicle’s tires hit an unexpected bump in the road, and you and the vehicle’s passengers all receive a small jolt in your seats. What you’ve just experienced is called vertical acceleration, and your vehicle’s suspension played a large part in minimizing its effects on you.
To put it simply, vertical acceleration is acceleration in a vertical direction. In the case of our imagined scenario, vertical acceleration occurred when your vehicle hit the bump in the road that caused it to briefly accelerate vertically.
In order to minimize the effects of vertical acceleration on vehicle drivers and passengers, manufacturers design their vehicle suspension systems to cushion the impact from the bumps and dips in the road. Springs and dampers absorb the kinetic energy released during vertical acceleration, protecting the people inside the vehicle from bouncing around as much as possible. In short, vehicle suspension systems reduce vertical acceleration to protect the people in the vehicle and maximize comfort while on the road. Here’s how the different parts of the suspension system help manage vertical acceleration:
Coil springs and leaf springs absorb bumps and shocks whenever your vehicle’s tires hit anything in their path. This helps keep the tires in contact with the road, reducing vertical acceleration for the whole vehicle.
There’s also the torsion spring, which is also known as the sway bar. This spring connects the suspension’s lower control arms and twists to prevent the vehicle body from rolling. In other words, it keeps the vehicle level and prevents one side from vertically accelerating more than the other.
The vehicle’s struts support the vehicle’s weight and house the suspension system’s shock absorbers and some of its springs. Struts are structural components. Without them, the other parts of the suspension system wouldn’t be able to reduce vertical acceleration efficiently. Struts manage spring and suspension movement using hydraulic fluid to minimize vertical acceleration.
Finally, shock absorbers serve to keep the springs contained, reducing rebound and controlling oscillation. They reduce vertical acceleration by dissipating the kinetic energy absorbed by the springs. Shock absorbers are also called dampers because they dampen the vibrations and other jolts as your vehicle’s tires travel over the road.
It’s important to understand the difference between vertical acceleration and horizontal acceleration. Vertical acceleration has to do with vertical movement, while horizontal acceleration deals with horizontal movement. When an object moves parallel to the horizon, it’s performing horizontal motion. As for the definition of vertical motion, it’s when an object moves perpendicular to the horizon. A simpler way to view this is that vertical motion is simply upwards and downwards.
Vertical acceleration is an interesting concept with a lot of nuances. It’s especially important for vehicle manufacturers to take note of it when designing their vehicle suspension systems. For the everyday driver though, all you need to know is that when you hit a bump in the road, vertical acceleration occurs as you’re jolted out of your seat.
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