NEW DESIGN SOLUTIONS FOR VEHICLE SUSPENSION COMPONENTS

– Master-Sport raising OE standards

Master-Sport focuses on innovation in Poland

Intellectual property is sometimes the best driver of competition between technology providers, and for the professionals involved in R&D, an opportunity for creative engagement in the field of improving the safety of motorists. Swingarm with a consumption compensator fitted with a smart shock absorber? Innovative proposals have recently been breaking stereotypes and exceeding the limits of the impossible.

The steady increase of speeds, and also the achieved mileages by the vehicles currently in use force the engineers to meet expectations in the field of ensuring the comfort and safety of motorists. The challenge today is the suspension system, whose constituent components guarantee the performance characteristics in a variety of road conditions and at different ambient temperatures. When designing innovative solutions, engineers today first of all take into account such aspects as proper heat dissipation. Of course, shock absorbers in car suspensions must meet various other operational requirements, such as constant performance characteristics for the entire period of use, satisfactory effectiveness irrespective of the conditions of the vehicle movement.

When it comes to improving market proposals, considerable efforts have been made recently by engineers at Master-Sport-Automobiltechnik (MS) GmbH, who developed the auto parts in question directly for the assembly lines of car manufacturers as OEM and aftermarket.

First of all, we are talking about the proposal, which turns out to be insensitive to temperature variations that accompany the work of a damper. Why is innovation so important? Nowadays, in order to achieve the desired vibration damping, vehicles use almost exclusively hydraulic shock absorbers operating in parallel with the resilient elements of the suspension. Hydraulic shock absorbers dampen the vibrations and weaken the shocks due to throttling the liquid flowing through a constriction, and as you know, any liquid, and oil in particular, changes its viscosity with temperature changes. The standard shock absorber is filled with a special oil, and that, and the valve system, is responsible for damping. In short, in case of a typical oil shock absorber, a car in the cold drives very hard – the drivers say that it tends to “rattle”, and only becomes more comfortable after warming up. However, some users have noted that at high ambient temperatures, the car begins to “float” while driving on uneven roads. This is the result of low oil viscosity. And here we come to the edge of our innovative proposal, which is insensitive to temperature variations.

Master-Sport (MS) smart damper

After installing the shock absorber with a new valve system fitted with a bimetallic spring, the predictions of our engineers were confirmed – the course of the damping force depending on the temperature amplitude turned out to be much more harmonic compared to the shock absorber of conventional design. For example, at the temp. -40°C, the bending force is 1980N and the rebound strength – 405N. At zero temperature, analogous indications were: 1940N and 392N. In turn, at +50°C: 1790 and 348N. Conclusion? These values have proven to be very close to one another.
The course of the relationship between the damping force depending on temperature is quite different when comparative tests were carried out on the behavior of conventional design dampers. Studies have shown that conventional shock absorbers at a temperature of -40°C showed a deflection force of 3033.6N and rebound force 1222.02N. At zero temperature, analogous indications were: 2009.76N and 436.905N. In turn, at +50°C: 1706.4N and 376.68N.

As you can see, the Master-Sport product showed no deterioration in the values in a very wide range of temperature changes.

– Our comparative tests prove that the damping performance of a conventional shock absorber turn out to be as much as 3 times more susceptible to change in the temperature range – highlights Łukasz Cudek from MASTER-SPORT-AUTOMOBILTECHNIK (MS) .

– The damping force increases at negative temperatures and decreases as the temperature goes up, which is obviously not beneficial to maintaining constant tire contact on every possible surface. In our shock absorbers it is significant that this innovation only slightly raises the cost of manufacture, while giving a significant improvement in the safety and comfort for the car’s user. Our proposal was also tested for deterioration of performance at very long distances, so we can provide our customers a mileage guarantee for up to 80 thousand km.

The innovative solution is already protected by a patent (Patent PCT/PL2015/000130), and the details of the innovative technological idea are now known to provide insensitivity to temperature variation due to the use of a specially designed valve system, which “recognizes” the oil temperature and dynamically adapts to the pre-established vibration characteristics, so regardless of the oil viscosity (temperature), the damping force of the shock absorber is almost the same.

Note that the research on smart damperhave been funded with the support of EU funds, and that MASTER-SPORT will be developing this technology.

– We are also working on other, equally important, innovations for users, e.g. swingarm bushes, or a new aluminum alloy and new coatings for the swingarm pin – adds President of Master-Sport Poland.

In the first place, the company will invest in automated machining that guarantees precision machining of automotive components. Later this year, we plan to implement a new system for B2B cooperation with customers, which will also guarantee improving everything related to the computerization of the company.

A staff of specialists from the MASTER-SPORT R&D department was meanwhile specializing in the design of suspensions made of lightweight alloys, as evidenced by another of our market proposals.

Swingarm with wear compensator

Uneven roads are a real challenge for the components responsible for transferring the load from the wheels of a moving car to the spring system. In a spherical joint (swingarm pivot) there are usually a couple of moving parts – a pan made of modified plastic and a ball pin. Conventional solutions (the standard ones) are based on securing such moving components with grease-filled casings. During the usual operation, the pan is subject to abrasive wear. A clearance appears, which makes the suspension noisy. How to reduce the usual wear and tear of components? The solution for reducing these clearances is a special ring. And this innovative idea has lived to see a patent application for the template model built in Poland – invention No.: 0597_01v10.

– The clearance between the pin and the pan is compensated automatically, which of course extends the life of the ball joint, reduces the disturbing knocking in suspension and improves driving safety – states Kamil Prorok of the R&D department at Master-Sport Poland.

– The pin’s breaking force is higher than the competition’s by approx. 15 to 50% – depending on the quality of our rivals’ proposals.

Greater strength and durability of such pin was obtained e.g. thanks to the pressing the elements and construction solutions responsible for the work of unit. Pressing the piece with high precision increases its strength – while the OE requirement is min. 15kN, the standard at Master-Sport is min. 20 kN – thus declaring a 5-year warranty (or 80 thousand km of vehicle mileage).

– With a view on developing production in our factory located in Gorlice, we now invite all those interested in developing indigenous technological thought to cooperation. I would like to add that we cooperate with scientific institutions in the country and abroad. We are expanding and we investing in our own research department.
Later this year, we plan to implement a new system for B2B cooperation with customers, which will also guarantee improving everything related to the computerization of the company.