Analysis of Steel and Composite Leaf Spring for Vehicle

Abstract

The Automobile Industry has shown keen interest for replacement of steel leaf spring with that of glass fiber composite leaf spring, since the composite material has high strength to weight ratio, good corrosion resistance and tailor-able properties. The present study searches the new material for leaf spring. In present study the material selected was glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) and the polyester resin (NETPOL 1011) (5) is used against conventional steel. A spring with constant width and thickness was fabricated by hand lay-up technique which was very simple and economical. The numerical analysis is carried via finite element analysis using ANSYS software. Stresses, deflection and strain energy results for both steel and composite leaf spring material were obtained. Result shows that, the composite spring has maximum strain energy than steel leaf spring and weight of composite spring was nearly reduced up to 85% compared with steel material. This paper describes design and FEA analysis of composite leaf spring made of glass fibre reinforced polymer. The dimensions of an existing conventional steel leaf spring of a light commercial vehicle are taken for evaluation of results. I. Introduction Finite Element analysis tools offer the tremendous advantage of enabling design teams to consider virtually any molding option without incurring the expense associated with manufacturing and machine time. The Ability to try new designs or concepts on the computer gives the opportunity to eliminate problems before beginning production. Additionally, designers can quickly and easily determine the sensitivity of specific molding Parameters on the quality and production of the final part. The leaf spring model is created by modeling software like pro-E , Catia and it is imported in to the analysis software and the loading, boundary conditions are given to the imported model and result are evaluated by post processor. The different comparative results of steel leaf spring and composite leaf spring are obtained to predict the advantages of composite leaf spring for a vehicle. II. FEA (Finite Element Analysis) FEA tool is the mathematical idealization of real system. Is a computer based method that breaks geometry into element and link a series of equation to each, which are then solved simultaneously to evaluate the behavior of the entire system. It is useful for problem with complicated geometry, loading, and material properties where exact analytical solution are difficult to obtain. Most often used for structural, thermal, fluid analysis, but widely applicable for other type of analysis and simulation