Hydraulic shock absorber

A hydraulic shock absorber comprising:

• a cylinder;
• a piston axially slidably fitted in the cylinder so as to divide the interior of the cylinder into a first cylinder chamber and a second cylinder chamber;
• and
• a damping force generating mechanism mounted on said piston for generating damping force by controlling the flow of the working fluid between said two cylinder chambers, said damping force generating mechanism comprising:
• at least one first passage formed through said piston oblique to the axis of said piston and connecting said first and second cylinder chambers,
• a first recess formed in one end of said piston on the side of an outlet end of said first passage so as to include said outlet end of said first passage,
• at least one second passage formed through said piston parallel to said axis of said piston, at a circumferential position differing from that of said first passage, and connecting said first and second cylinder chambers,
• a second recess formed radially outside said first recess in said one end of said piston on the side of an outlet end of said second passage so as to include said outlet end of said second passage;
• a partition wall separating said first recess and said second recess from each other, and a cutout formed in a top surface of said partition wall and connecting said first and second recesses with each other, said outlet end of said first passage opening into said first recess at a position circumferentially corresponding to said connecting cutout;
• and
• a disk valve assembly disposed on said one end of said piston on said side of said outlet end of said first passage, said assembly comprising a plurality of disk valve elements having different diameters and superposed in decreasing order of diameter on said piston so as to define a first chamber together with said first recess and to define a second chamber together with said second recess, and means for fixing inner peripheries of said disk valve elements to said one end of said piston so that said inner peripheries are incapable of flexing and such that, when pressure is received through said first and second passages through inlet ends thereof to said outlet ends thereof, outer peripheries of said disk valve elements sequentially flex away from said one end of said piston in said decreasing order of diameter as said pressure increases, thereby providing a sequentially increasing damping force.