Why is there a sweet spot (50-60mph) where a vehicle will shake when the alignment is off? How does the shaking start around 50/55 and get better after going over 60?
In: Engineering
This happens when you hit a resonant frequency and the misalignment synchronizes with your suspension.
When you hit a bump, your suspension is going to bounce, and each bounce will take about the same amount of time, no matter your speed. A misalignment is going to cause a small bounce, the faster you go, the more often it happens. When these two times match up, they reinforce each other, and you get big suspension bounces. Then when you speed up a little more, they no longer match up, and the bouncing is not so bad.
You’ll often see the same sort of thing driving on washboard gravel or on a concrete highway with evenly spaced cracks between the blocks.
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