Glossary: Air suspension

Any vehicle suspension that uses contained air for vehicle springing can be called air suspension. This system uses air rather than metal springs to support the vehicle on its axles or wheels.

A compressor driven either electrically or by the engine supplies pressurized air to a tank. The pressure inside this tank is maintained at a particular level. Air flows from the tank to both the front and rear suspensions through a leveling valve. The leveling valve is actuated by an arm and link rod attached to the axles. Thus the air pressure is increased or decreased accordingly by the leveling valve and thus the chassis height from the axle is varied.

The air suspension system consists of the following items

- Compressor: It compresses the air and feeds it into the tank

- Reservoir tank: It stores the compressed air.

- Unloader valve: Air passes from the compressor to the the reservoir tank through this valve.

- Isolator valve: They split the air supply to the left and right springs.

- Pressure regulator valve: It regulates the pressure of air delivered to the suspension.

- Leveling Valve: They reduce or raise the chassis height by varying the supply of air to the air springs.