^Title Shock Absorber Load Testing

A solution that would measure the increase in load as the bike went uphill was required, to allow the suspension to be adapted to the specifications of the user.

Three key elements played an important role in the success of this project.

• Engineers needed to establish loads with millisecond precision. Therefore, capturing the information at the highest rate possible ensured that no information was missed out.
• Due to the outdoor nature of the testing, the strain gauges in the pin needed to remain stable over a wide range of temperatures.
• The application required a bespoke design of the pin to fit the design of the mountain bike.

An engineer attached a load pin to the suspension, which connected to the FSU device. The team then connected the FSU to a PC held in the backpack of our cyclist. With this, we were able to see how the different damping settings affected the loading in the shock absorber. The fast measurement rate allowed detailed analysis.

In summary, the high sampling rates of the FSU were used to analyse the effect of changing the damper settings. We tested how the rebound speed of our bike’s damper affects its shock absorption features after a 250 mm drop. Initially, the team set our bike’s oil damper to quick rebound for the first test.

Hitec Sensors design load cells, force sensors, torque and pressure transducers which are incorporated into advanced, often custom applications in aerospace, medical, automotive industrial, energy, electronics, and other industries to support high-quality manufacturing and testing as well as operational safety.

Micro-Measurements is dedicated to the development, manufacture, and marketing of products for high-precision strain and stress measurement.