Race Damper Piston Rod Bending Loads as a Function of Spring Rate

An experimental process has been developed to test a singly supported damper-spring assembly over a range of spring rates. The piston rod of a Penske 8760 3-way adjustable damper has been instrumented with four axial strain gauges with ¼ bridge completion. One can then measure resultant coil spring eccentric bending load and direction acting on the damper piston rod during compression. Results presented consist of a set of magnitudes of the bending loads in the piston rod at varying damper displacements over a wide range of spring rates. The experiment shows that bending loads can be of sufficient magnitude as to suggest the desirability of alternatives to the normal static spring platform.