Study the Possibility of using Fiber and Polymer Composite Materials in Helical Spring Manufacturing

Abstract

This work deals with studying the possibility of introducing new material into the spring manufacturing and study the properties of this spring and the load-carrying capacity when it is facing compression load. Then, specifying the application that this new composite spring could be used for. One of the applications of springs are in the suspension system, and the primary demand that the designers of automobiles are looking for is improving fuel efficiency, which may be related to the weight of the vehicle. In this research, the steel spring has been replaced by glass and carbon fibers composite with polyester resin as a matrix material. Theoretical analysis has been conducted, and numerical analysis of spring was performed using ANSYS WORKBENCH to simulate the spring under axial compression load. A comparison between the the theoretical and numerical deflection results has been made to predict the best material that can be used for replacement the steel spring. The second part of the research is the selection of materials and the utilized mold in the manufacturing process of the composite helical compression spring by using fibers, it was found that carbon fiber spring has results near to steel spring with stiffness 5.66 and steel 5.49 and glass composite spring 5.018 and carbon composite deflection was less than the glass composite deflection.