The liquid spring strut was conceived over 20 years ago to fulfill the need of providing a more reliable and better performing suspension system on off-highway trucks in the mining industry. The strut was built like a conventional shock absorber, except it was filled with pressurized silicone fluid as opposed to mineral oil. This configuration resulted in a unique component capable of carrying the load of the vehicle and providing damping in a single element.
The future potential of this technology was recognized and LiquidSpring Technologies, Inc. (LST) was founded in March of 1993 to further its development. The original strut worked very well for the off-highway mining applications, however, it was not very adaptable for other applications because of its fixed preload and damping characteristic. Continued innovative efforts by LST resulted in technological breakthroughs which allowed the strut to exhibit a broad range of stiffness and damping characteristics and hence be applicable to on-highway applications. The key, patented breakthrough was coupling the strut with an additional fluid volume and controlling the fluid interaction between each component thus enabling the strut to have variable stiffness and damping. This aspect is truly unique and sets this technology apart from other suspension systems.
The liquid spring suspension systems developed by LST are called CLASS® or Compressible Liquid Adaptive Suspension System. CLASS® products have been successfully developed for several light and medium duty truck applications such as ambulances and shuttle buses. It has demonstrated significant ride and handling performance improvements over conventional steel and air spring suspension systems based on ride and drive evaluations at OEM's. Further refinements in its configuration and control have resulted in reduced costs and complexity.
In July of 2004, LST formed a subsidiary LiquidSpring LLC to focus on the commercialization effort while LST continues its research work. LiquidSpring LLC is currently developing CLASS® product for recreational vehicles, CLASS® 3-8 specialty truck, bus, tour coach, and military vehicle applications. LiquidSpring LLC will be responsible for the manufacturing, sales, distribution, and service of CLASS® product in the above markets.
