10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book on dampers, April 22, 2005
This review is from: The Shock Absorber Handbook (Hardcover)
This is the best book ever written about shock absorbers. Although much have been written about dumpers in the other books, nowhere the dumpers have been covered so well as in this book, from design, construction, production, testing and using, to the analysis of ride-handling compromise. It covers the damper both as the unit per se, and as a small yet vital part of the whole complex vehicle system.
Please note that the information in this book is mostly academical and abstract. It servers educational purposes excellent, but has little practical value for a beginning racer or automotive enthusiast. The chapter about damper testing covers mostly laboratory tests on special machines. The chapter about fluid mechanics analyzes different damper fluid properties, without reference to any specific particular fluid compound. The chapter about valve design lists various valve types, characteristics and various theoretical models of valves. The chapter about adjustable damper enumerates the purposes of adjustment, classifies the dampers by the ease of adjustment, and gives different adjustable valve types. Having great theoretical value, the book however gives no advice for those people who would like to modify a damper manually by installing different kinds of valves, using another liquid, etc.
Millikens in their wonderful volume "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics" have devoted 40 pages to dampers, but almost all on vehicle behavior, rather than damper design itself. "The Shock Absorber Handbook" reveals the problem of passenger comfort better than the Millikens' work. However, both of the books have similar style, both have hundreds of formulas and illustrations. I highly recommend it to anybody interested in the theory of vehicle dynamics.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Shock Absorber Handbook, Reviewed, July 10, 2001
This review is from: The Shock Absorber Handbook (Hardcover)
The Shock Absorber Handbook is a good work, providing hundreds of formulas for computing load-dampening responses. Somewhat overly detailed on advanced theories,with strong references to hi-performance applications. It is the book you picture as a classic textbook for a college-level shock-design course. Chapter 1 gives a good basis in the history of the hydraulic dampener, from the initial start of friction snubbers to today's performance units. A good book to add to any shock design engineer's library.
Product Design Engineer
ArvinMeritor LVA - Export
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Bible of dampers, February 6, 2007
This review is from: The Shock Absorber Handbook (Hardcover)
At first view the book seems like a dissapointment. Numerous equations, most of them rather complex. You feel that this is basically an academic book and has nothing to do with real and practical knowledge. But as you go deeper into the book you will soon realize that the content is going to be very helpful in a practical point of view.
The book starts with pure vibration theory. Don't even think that this is sonething to ignore as it is so important to know the basic aspects of vibraton theory in order to go deep in damper knowledge. You will find many important and interesting things for the real world, like transmissibility of the suspension, damping coefficient, damping ratio, damping factor and more. Also at Section 2.8 series stiffness is being discussed which is an extremely interesting subject in a practical point of view.
Chapter 3 is maybe the most important chapter of the book describing in depth the theoryof vehicle vibrations, ride, handling and most importantly you will learn a lot about ride handling compromise.
Chapter 4 is about motion ratio, its effect in suspension behavior and also you will be so happy to be in a position to understand the basic differences in terms of geometry and behavior between double wishbones, mcpherson struts, rocker arm suspension, pushrod, pullrod and motorcycle forks and rear suspensions. Personally, i was excited to find out that in most cases there are not huge differences in behavior between a double wishbone and a strut suspension.
Chapter 5 is all about fluid dynamics but as the author also states, you must already have a level of knowledge on the topic in order to fully understand the stuff there.
Chapter 6 is about valve design, valve types, velve characteristics and valve models.
Chapter 7 will guide you through the damper behavior, it will talk about valve flow rates and the effect of these on damper behavior, damper parameters like damper symmetry and more.
Chapter 8 discusses about the adjustable dampers and the effects of the various adjustments in the damper behavior.
Chapter 9 will give you a guide on how to specify a damper
Chapter 10 is a very nice and practical chapter on damper testing.
If i have a single complaint about this book is that it would be 100% perfect in the case it contained some colour real pictures of various types of dampers, damper internal components, various types of valves, etc.
All in all, this is a book you cannot afford to lose if you are serious in dampers. I would like to see a more modern new edition though.
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