Investigation regarding the Replacement of Composite Material Leaf Springs with Spring Steel Leaf Springs in Automotive Vehicles: A Review

Abstract

Leaf Springs finds vast applications in different types of mechanical systems. In spite of lot of research, spring steel leaf springs finds a lot of applications in all types of heavy vehicle. Composite leaf springs represent some application of composite materials in the field of automotive lightweight materials. However, the composite material finds limited applications in the form of mono leaf but for multi leaf in heavy vehicles, its application is rare due to certain issues including delamination. Stiffness and damping properties are the critical parameter of composite leaf springs and are closely related to the handling stability and ride comfort of automobiles. Composite leaf spring with variable parameters may be used in the automobiles to replace the conventional steel leaf springs, mainly due to the high load-bearing capacity. The optimum structural design of composite leaf spring may be calculated using an effective algorithm. The mechanical properties of composite leaf spring is analyzed with experimental or computational approach or both. This paper investigates addresses various issues regarding the replacement of composite material leaf springs with spring steel leaf springs in light and heavy weight automotive vehicles.