Performance Analysis of Composite Leaf Spring Using Computer Aided Engineering

Abstract

Automobile industries have shown more interest for the replacement of conventional steel leaf spring with that of the composite leaf spring due to its high strength to weight ratio. The objective of the work is to carry out computer aided design and analysis of composite (Glass fiber reinforced plastic) leaf spring and conventional steel leaf spring by considering certain parameters like stress, deflection and strain energy with similar design considerations and loading conditions. The material of the conventional leaf spring is 65Si7 and composite leaf spring is S2-Glass\Epoxy. The CAD model of the leaf spring is modeled in Pro-E and the numerical analysis is carried out using finite element analysis, ANSYS 14. Stress, deflection and strain energy results of both steel and composite leaf spring are obtained and compared. The result shows that the composite leaf spring has maximum strain energy than conventional steel leaf spring and weight of the composite leaf spring is nearly reduced up to 85% compared with steel material.