ABSTRACT In air suspension systems, conventional metal spring is replaced by a rubber bellows or an air-bag at each wheel.

In this system an air compressor, driven by the engine of the car or by an electric motor, to provide a source of compressed air which inflates the suspension units. The latter usually take the form of rubber bags, partly folded inwards on themselves and termed rolling lobes. A piston on the suspension arm to which the wheel is attached forces the base of the bag inwards, or compresses the rubber bellows, when this is used instead of a rolling lobe. Levelling valves, also operated by the movements of the suspension arms, maintain the correct riding height for the vehicle, admitting additional air when the vehicle is loaded and the suspension units are compressed, and releasing air when the load is reduced. Some form of delay mechanism is normally incorporated in the levelling valve to prevent it responding immediately to every movement of the suspension arm or the body of the car. INTRODUCTION: The automobile chassis is mounted on the axles, not direct but through some form of springs. This is done to isolate the vehicle body from the road shocks which may be in the form of bounce, pitch, roll or sway. These tendencies give rise to an uncomfortable ride and also cause additional stress in the automobile frame and body. All the parts which perform the function of isolating the automobile from the road shocks are collectively called a suspension system. It includes the springing device used and various mountings for the same. LAYOUT OF AIR SUSPENSION A rigid six wheel truck equipped with pairs of air springs per axle is shown in Fig. 3.1. The front suspension has an air spring mounted between the underside of each chassis side-member and the transverse axle beam, and the rear tandem suspension has the air springs mounted between each trailing arm and the underside of the chassis.Air from the engine compressorpasses through both the unloader valve & the pressure regulator valve to the reservoir tank. Air is also delivered to the brake system reservoir (not shown). Once the compressed air has reached some pre-determined upper pressure limit, usually between 8 and 8.25 bar, the unloader valve exhausts any further air delivery from the pump directly to the atmosphere, thereby permitting the compressor to run light. Immediately the air supply to the reservoir has dropped to a lower limit of 7.25 bar, the unloader valve will automatically close its exhaust valve so that air is now transferred straight to the reservoir to replenish the air consumed. Because the level of air pressure demanded by the brakes is greater than that for the suspension system, a pressure regulator valve is incorporated between the unloader valve and suspension reservoir valve, its function being to reduce the delivery pressure for the suspension to approximately 5.5 bar.Air now flows from the suspension reservoir through a filter and junction towards both the front and rear suspensions by way of a single central levelling valve at the front (Fig. 3.2) and a pair of levelling valves on each side of the first tandem axle. These levelling valves are bolted to the chassis, but they are actuated by an arm and link rod attached to the axles. It is the levelling valves function to sense any change in the chassis to axle height and to increase or decrease the pair pressure supply passing to the air springs, thereby raising or reducing the chassis height respectively. The air pressure actually reaching the springs may vary from 5.5 bar fully laden down to 2.5 bar when the vehicle is empty.

MAIN COMPONENTS OF AIR SUSPENSION SYSTEM A pre-determined time delay before air is allowed to flow to or from the air spring is built into the valve unit. This ensures that the valves are not operated by axle bump or rebound movement as the vehicle rides over road surfaces, or by increased loads caused by the roll of the body on prolonged bends or on highly cambered roads. The valve unit consists of two parts; a hydraulic damper and the air control valve (Fig. 3.2). Both the damper and the valves are actuated by the horizontal operating lever attached to the axle via a vertical link rod. The operating lever pivots on a cam spindle mounted in the top of the valve assembly housing. The swing movement of the operating lever is relayed to the actuating arm through a pair of parallel positioned leaf springs fixed rigidly against the top and bottom faces of the flat cam, which forms an integral part of the spindle. When the operating lever is raised or lowered, the parallel leaf springs attached to the lever casing pivot about the dam spindle. This caused both leaf springs to deflect outwards and at the same time applies a twisting movement to the cam spindle. It therefore tends to tilt the attached actuating arm and accordingly the dashpot piston will move either to the right or left against the fluid resistance. There will be a small time delay before the fluid has had time escape from the compressed fluid side of the piston to the opposite side via the clearance between the piston and cylinder wall, after which the piston will move over progressively. A delay of 8 to 12 seconds on the adjustment of air pressure has been found suitable, making the levelling valve inoperative under normal road surface driving conditions. AIR SPRING CHARACTERISTICS The bounce frequency of a spring decreases as the sprung weight increases and increases as this weight is reduced. This factor plays an important part in the quality of ride which can be obtained on a heavy goods or passenger vehicle where there could be a fully laden to unladen weight ratio of up to 5 : 1. An inherent disadvantage of leaf, coil and solid rubber springs is that the bounce frequency of vibration increases considerably as the sprung spring mass is reduced (Fig. 5.1). Therefore, if a heavy goods vehicles is designed to give the best ride frequency, say 60 cycles per minute fully laden then as this load is removed, the suspensions bounce frequency could rise to something like 300 cycles per minut e when steel or solid rubber springs are used, which would produce a very harsh, uncomfortable ride. Air springs, on the other hand, can operate over a very narrow bounce frequency range with considerable changes in vehicle laden weight, say 60 110 cycles per minute for a rolling lobe air spring (Fig. 5.1). Consequently the quality of ride with air springs is maintained over a wide range of operating conditions. VOLVO OPTIMISED AIR SUSPENSION (VOAS) SYSTEM The Volvo optimised air suspension (VOAS) system is a modified version of the previous air suspension on rear axles of Volvo GM heavy duty trucks (Figure 6.1). A number of modifications in the VOAS system provide improved ride, reduced unspring weight, increased durability, and better alignment ability. The VOAS system is available on all Volvo GM on-highway tractors. The operation of the VOAS system is similar to the operation of other air suspension systems explained previously. The spring brackets in the VOAS system are manufactured from ductile iron, and these brackets have closed sections and cutouts to reduce the weight of each bracket by 4 lb (2 kg) (Fig. 6.2). As in previous models, a polyethylene wear pad provides a very smooth surface for the end of the spring to contact (Fig. 6.3). This type of wear pad eliminates noise caused by contact between the spring and metal wear pad in other suspension systems. The wear pad in the VOAS 50 % is lighter compared with the wear pad in previous suspension systems. A single fastener retains the wear pad to the spring bracket legs.