People talking about vehicle suspensions often refer to “shocks and struts”. Hearing this, you may have wondered whether a strut is the same as a shock absorber. Alright let‘s try to separately analyse these two terms so that you understand the difference between shock absorber and strut.
A Shock Absorber is also a damper. It helps to absorb the vibrational energy of the spring of the car. (Either coil or leaf). If the car didn’t have a shock absorber, the vehicle would spring up and down till it lost all its energy. The shock absorber hence helps to avoid this by dissipating the energy of the spring as heat energy. On Automobiles we loosely use the word ‘damper’ in place of ‘shock’. Although technically a shock is a damper, it will be more specific to use shocks when refering to the damper of the suspension system as damper can mean any other dampers use in the car (for engine and body isolation, or any other isolation)
LEACREE Shock Absorber
A Strut is essentially a complete assembly, which includes shock absorber, spring, upper mount and bearing. On some cars, the shock absorber is separate from the spring. If the spring and shock are mounted together as a single unit, it is called a strut.
LEACREE Strut Assembly
Now to conclude, a shock absorber is a type of damper known as friction damper. A Strut is a shock (damper) with a spring as one unit.
If you feel bouncy and bumpy, be sure to inspect your struts and shocks as it may be time to replace them.
(Share from Engineer: Harshavardhan Upasani)
Post time: Jul-28-2021
