Spring vs Damper

[DarkOwl57]

Hello everyone. So I'm a HUGE fan of racing, as you may know, and I'm creating a racing series. But when I'm setting up the cars for the race, I'm continually confused on one very important thing: Suspension. I know the wheels have settings for this (I mainly use the TR-2L for 90% of my cars,) but I have no idea what they do! Please advise 

[Gaarst]

Spring strength is the resistance of the suspension: higher spring strength means the suspension will need higher loads to compress.

Damper is the damping of the suspension. A suspension is essentially a spring, high school physics will tell you that a compressed spring will return back to its position and oscillate back and forth following SHM. Damping reduces the amplitude of the oscillation: the more damping you have, the quicker the oscillation stops (although there's a sweet spot called critical damping in which the oscillation stops the quickest).

[DarkOwl57]

3 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Spring strength is the resistance of the suspension: higher spring strength means the suspension will need higher loads to compress.

Damper is the damping of the suspension. A suspension is essentially a spring, high school physics will tell you that a compressed spring will return back to its position and oscillate back and forth following SHM. Damping reduces the amplitude of the oscillation: the more damping you have, the quicker the oscillation stops (although there's a sweet spot called critical damping in which the oscillation stops the quickest).

so say I'm racing a car, and I'm turning left at a high rate of speed.

So if my right-side spring is at... say.... 2, and I was making this turn, the right side would stay horizontal to the ground since the high spring setting. But if the right side was at say... 0.5, the right side would sink into the turn. But if my damper was at 2, the right side would snap back up as soon as the turn is done, correct?

[Gaarst]

56 minutes ago, DarkOwl57 said:

so say I'm racing a car, and I'm turning left at a high rate of speed.

So if my right-side spring is at... say.... 2, and I was making this turn, the right side would stay horizontal to the ground since the high spring setting. But if the right side was at say... 0.5, the right side would sink into the turn. But if my damper was at 2, the right side would snap back up as soon as the turn is done, correct?

The spring part is correct. For the damper, as the turn is a long force rather than a short perturbation, I think the spring would matter more in this case. The spring gives the strength (and therefore the speed) at which the suspension gets back to its origin point. The damper gives the speed at which it comes at rest.

In you example, with a very high spring and low damper, you'd get small but fast oscillations when in and leaving the turn, but your car would stay relatively flat. With a low spring and low damper, your right side would sink, and would continue bouncing around after the turn. With a low spring and high damper, you would sink and take a little time to get back straight after the turn, but you wouldn't bounce around. With high spring and damper, you'd turn flat and would pretty much stay flat after the turn.

If you are driving over flat surfaces (eg: dragstering down the runway with small turns) high spring and damper would give you the best result. If you're going for a ride in the mountains, you want to allow some bounciness to avoid smashing your suspension each time you drive over a rock. At least that's how I understand it.

AFAIK, real life racing cars have pretty rigid suspensions if they have to stay on track (with F1 having close to no suspension at all).

Edited February 3, 2017 by Gaarst

[DarkOwl57]

23 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

The spring part is correct. For the damper, as the turn is a long force rather than a short perturbation, I think the spring would matter more in this case. The spring gives the strength (and therefore the speed) at which the suspension gets back to its origin point. The damper gives the speed at which it comes at rest.

In you example, with a very high spring and low damper, you'd get small but fast oscillations when in and leaving the turn, but your car would stay relatively flat. With a low spring and low damper, your right side would sink, and would continue bouncing around after the turn. With a low spring and high damper, you would sink and take a little time to get back straight after the turn, but you wouldn't bounce around. With high spring and damper, you'd turn flat and would pretty much stay flat after the turn.

If you are driving over flat surfaces (eg: dragstering down the runway with small turns) high spring and damper would give you the best result. If you're going for a ride in the mountains, you want to allow some bounciness to avoid smashing your suspension each time you drive over a rock. At least that's how I understand it.

AFAIK, real life racing cars have pretty rigid suspensions if they have to stay on track (with F1 having close to no suspension at all).

Thank you SOOOO much for this; Now I know how to set up the race cars  In fact.... How would you like to sponsor a race?

"The R&D Grand Prix Sponsored by Gaarst Enterprises"

[DarkOwl57]

7 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

You're welcome! And you can let your Grand Prix be independent and open to sponsoring form everyone!

k

[Vanamonde]

Thread moved to Gameplay, since it is seeking rather than offering help.