Shock absorber with adjustable damping force

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To enable the response performance to be augmented by configurating a car shock absorber in such a manner that the cross sectional area of the oil passage which connects two hydraulic chambers within a cylinder is allowed to be adjustable permitting a piezoelectric element to generate an electric voltage in response to the displacement of sliding members and also to transmit the displacement to the sliding members simultaneously. CONSTITUTION:A side hole 18 of a piston 12 is connected with a groove 19a of a spool 19 permitting a damping force determined by the resistance caused through the side hole 18 and a throttle 16 to be produced when no electric voltage is applied to a piezoelectric element 23 by a control circuit 2. While on the contrary, when a high voltage is applied to the piezoe lectric element 23 by the control circuit 2, a small change in elongation takes place in the piezoelectric element 23 allowing its displacement to be enlarged by a ratio of the cross sectional area between a plunger 25 and a projection 19b of the spool 19 by a sealed chamber 27. This causes the spool 19 to be displaced downward allowing the side hole 18 and the groove 19a to be disconnected. Resultantly, this allows the damping force to be increased. In addition, changes in hydraulic pressure 14 and 15 when a car is running are allowed to be converted into changes in an electric voltage of the piezoelectric crystal element 23 by the piezoelectric effect, and to be transmitted to the control circuit 2 to determine the running condition. Thus, this configuration enables the response performance to be augmented.

Inventors

• 👤 Mitsuo Inagaki
• 👤 光夫 稲垣
• 👤 Hideaki Sasaya
• 👤 笹谷　英顕
• 👤 Kenji Takeda
• 👤 憲司 武田
• 👤 Yodo Nakano
• 👤 中野　容道

Bibliographic Details