1.3.3 Shock Absorbers
Shock absorbers serve both to guarantee driving safety of a vehicle as well as to optimise driving comfort (see figure).
Driving safety is highly influenced by the road grip of the wheels. Oscillations of the wheel masses, which are also called unsprung masses together with the proportionate masses of the wheel suspension components, have to be minimised by damping, since they are suspended only on the tire spring but not on the vehicle body suspension (cR >>cA).
A satisfactory driving comfort requires on the one hand, that the amplitudes of the body oscillations are small, and on the other hand, that the body accelerations which are induced by the damping forces are as small as possible. This implies a rather weak damping.
During the selection of a damper therefore a compromise between hard damping for safety and a soft damping for comfort has to be implemented.