It becomes very difficult at times to understand what an air spring is and how it works. This is not something that gives you pleasure. So, why not try to understand the concept clearly?
Yes, this article will provide you with an overview of how air springs work along with a brief introduction of related terms. So, let’s go and find out what you have to learn about Vigorairride air springs.
What is an air spring?
In simple words, an air spring is a kind of load-carrying component that helps the vehicles to be stabilized in any kind of situation.
Different vehicles such as automobiles, buses, or machines usually have air suspension systems. What does an air suspension system consist of? It consists of an air spring, bellows, levelling valves, air-supply tank, connecting pipes, and check valves.
All these things work mutually to make sure that every vehicle maintains proper height in different positions with heavy and loads.
History of air springs
Let’s now move to history to understand how air spring came alive for vehicles.
The first initiative was taken by a British engineer who made something like air suspension for a bicycle. It was just the start of a great invention that later helped car manufacturers to make rides easy and safe for travellers along with several industrial uses.
The US car producers started to use air springs in the 1940s. But they used it only for the buses that used to go for long trips. That means the general use of air suspension systems took quite a long time. Later in the 1950s, US railway vehicles started to maximize the air suspension broadly.
In the 1950s, some luxury car manufacturers started using air suspensions or air springs. But that went wrong for some reason and the manufacturers dropped the idea some years later.
Nowadays, the use of air springs is very common in vehicles. In recent times, another type of levelling system has come alive for several passenger cars. This includes shock absorbers which are air-adjustable. Importantly, there is a type of air spring that can be operated without having an air compressor which is great, to be honest.
Usefulness of air springs
Air springs are in use for almost a century to make the best use of compressed air in terms of the braking systems of vehicles. This provides a type of two-fold advantage for your vehicles considering the coil springs and mechanical leaf.
Thus, the vehicle becomes more comfortable for the passengers on any kind of road using the power of varying the air pressure of the air spring. In addition, the quality of the ride increases significantly.
Realizing its usefulness, the machine industry started to work on springs to solve different problems. Several uses of air springs came alive in recent times which includes the use as vibration isolators, tensioners, shock absorbers, linear actuators, etc.
As air springs absorb shock, you may use them for material-handling applications which include sawmills. You may also use them in the laundry machines or vibrating hoppers as vibration isolators.
In addition, air springs are very much affordable to use. Moreover, they produce high force for your vehicle or machines. At the same time, you may use them for a better angular rotation.
Types of air spring
Now it is time to know about the type of air springs that we usually see and use.
You can get two types of springs such as convoluted bellow and the rolling lobe. You may find some people who replace the name of rolling lobe with reversible sleeve.
In terms of the rolling lobe spring, you will see that a single bladder, obviously rubber made, is used to do the work of folding inward and rolling outward considering the direction.
This type of air spring does not generate high force because of bulging issues. So, you can consider this as something that is backdated or less effective.
As the name contains the word ‘bellow’, you may understand that convoluted bellow has bellows to work with. In most cases, one bellows is enough. But you will see many air springs with two or three bellows to increase the strength.
As there is the possibility to use three bellows at a time, convoluted bellows are very powerful springs. Comparing with the rolling lobe springs, you can expect ten times better service from it. Importantly, the life cycle of the convoluted bellows becomes two times longer than the rolling lobe.
How do air springs work?
You can consider an air-spring bellows as a column that is confined with a container made of fabric and rubber. It looks like two or three tires on top of each other.
When the load of a vehicle is increased, the check valves add supplementary air to the bellows which come from an air supply tank. The contrary thing happens at the time of unloading. That means the levelling valves release air to stabilize the vehicle. This is a mandatory requirement for a vehicle to stay in a good position in terms of height.
Air Springs for Vehicles
Air springs are available for two types of cars or vehicles. The first one is the vehicles with leaf springs and the second one is vehicles with coil springs.
In terms of leaf spring vehicles, an air spring is set on top of the vehicle’s existing spring, that is leaf spring and then, the engineers make a connection between them.
This combination of springs works together to provide extra support while hauling and towing heavy loads. The leaf springs do their job perfectly while the air springs add air pressure to make the levelling process smooth.
Then, the coil spring vehicles. In this case, air springs are set directly with the existing springs, that means with the coil springs. Here, air springs give support to the coils by additional air pressure. This ensures smoother rides and stabilizes the height when necessary or there is a heavy load on the vehicle
