Steel Leaf Research Articles

Study of Composite Light Weight Leaf Spring

The fundamental Objective of this project is to represent plan and exploratory examination of composite leaf spring made of glass fiber reinforced polymer. The intention is to look at the load carrying capacity, weight and stiffness effective of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The design imperatives are stresses and deflections. The measurements of a current ordinary steel leaf spring of a light business vehicle are taken. Static investigation of leaf spring is likew ise performed utilizing analysis software and compared with experimental results. Limited component investigation with full load on 3D model of composite multi leaf spring is done utilizing analysis software and the analytical results are compared with experimentalresult

Characterisation of the Rigid Body Vibration Spectra of Road Transport Vehicles

ABSTRACTFor decades, numerous attempts at re‐creating realistic (vertical) vibrations that purport to represent typical conditions during road transport have been proposed and published. This has and continues to result in a significant number of target power density spectra (PDS) for use in laboratory simulation of vibrations despite the fact that the underlying parameters that influence the vibrations (road surface unevenness and vehicle dynamics) remain largely unchanged. This paper seeks to address this situation by analysing published and measured PDS (129 in total) from a variety of vehicles and road types with the aim of establishing typical PDS. Through the analysis of the frequency of the first natural mode of these PDS, it was found that there exist five typical response PDS (three for steel leaf suspension and two for air ride suspension) that can be considered as representative vibration response PDS for road transport in general. These representative PDS were matched with a two degree‐of‐freedom quarter‐car model representing the heave response of the rigid body motion of the vehicles. The analysis suggests that the higher frequency content of the measured data is not related to rigid body motion but emanates from drivetrain and, in some cases, structural vibrations. These usually comprise numerous harmonics of fixed and varying frequencies as well as transients. As these vibrations are impossible to classify based on vehicle type, it is recommended that the five quarter‐car representative spectral models proposed in this paper—namely, for steel leaf spring suspended vehicles with heavy, moderate and light loads and air ride type vehicles with heavy and light loads—be used for laboratory simulation for the purpose of evaluating the vibration resistance of products and packaged systems. It is suggested that, for most packaged product, this is sufficient to test their ability to survive road transport vibrations. These will yield more realistic vibrations than those endorsed by standards organisations and should have a positive impact on the optimisation of packaging designs and a corresponding reduction in packaging waste. Finally, the need for further work aimed at developing methods to identify and extract fixed and varying discrete frequency vibration as well as transient vibrations was identified.

Fatigue Analysis of Composite Leaf Springs - A Review

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of work that has been carried out in analyzing composite leaf springs. Leaf springs made of fibre reinforced composites exhibit much more advantages when compared with steel leaf springs. Most importantly, polymer composites increase the performances of vehicles by decreasing the weight of the leaf spring and also by providing corrosion resistance. This paper summarizes the fatigue analysis of composite leaf springs by considering the results obtained by some of the research works.

Comparative analysis of static and vibration characteristics of glass fiber reinforced epoxy mono composite leaf spring and conventional steel leaf spring

Leaf springs play a vital role in heavy-duty vehicles by offering substantial load support, durability, and convenient maintenance. Lightweight leaf springs enhance vehicle performance, offering benefits like improved fuel efficiency and a smoother ride. Glass fiber reinforced composites enhance fuel efficiency and durability, providing corrosion resistance. Their design flexibility improves ride comfort, and damping properties enhance vehicle stability. The examination conducted through finite element analysis, utilizing ANSYS software, demonstrated a substantial 75.32% decrease in weight for the E-Glass-Epoxy composite leaf spring (GECLS), affirming its efficacy in enhancing strength, reducing weight, and enhancing stiffness. This underscores its superiority as a viable alternative to traditional steel leaf springs (SLS) in vehicular applications. The mono-GECLS exhibited a natural frequency that was found to be 1.9 times higher than that observed in the traditional SLS. It indicates the potential to mitigate resonance issues. After analysing the SLS and GECLS using ANSYS, it was observed that the GECLS exhibits greater values in deflection, natural frequency, and strain energy, measuring 4.659 mm, 29.98 Hz, and 440.68 mJ, respectively, compared to its steel counterpart. Conversely, the SLS demonstrates elevated values in stress, mass, and density, with readings of 283.84 MPa, 3.7695 kg, and 5920 kg/m³, respectively.

Designed and Analysed of Three Distinct Composite Material-Based Mano Leaf Spring using ANSYS

The leaf spring is an important component in vehicles because it provides a comfortable ride and stability to the vehicle. The need to replace leaf springs with stronger and more lasting leaf springs is a key challenge in the transportation and automotive industries. In addition to offering ride comfort and stability, traditional steel leaf springs have a significant impact on the weight of the car. Fibre reinforced polymeric composites, therefore, are appropriate materials for various applications due to their many exceptional properties, including high wear resistance, high strength, long fatigue life, corrosion resistance, and low density. Fiber-reinforced polymeric composites find extensive application in several technical sectors, such as automotive, aviation, military, and marine industries. The utilization of composite materials has become imperative in the automotive industry to attain weight reduction without compromising material strength, as fuel consumption and CO2 emissions have to be reduced. In this paper, three different types of composite-based mono leaf springs were designed and examined. The results of the investigations showed that the 0° unidirectional glass fiber system was unable to correctly produce the required spring rate. Consequently, many combinations of carbon and glass hybrid systems were studied. The analysis showed that the desired spring rate was produced by the material configuration of [0°6G / 0°2C / 0°22G] S. When the final results were contrasted with the FEA findings, it was found that they concurred.

Design and Analysis of Leaf Springs with Structural Steel and Chromium Vanadium Steel

Abstract: Leaf springs are part of the suspension system on most vehicles and add weight to vehicles due to the traditional steel material. The automotive industry is interested in replacing traditional materials such as steel with other materials for various reasons, such as different mechanical properties. Intensive research is being carried out into replacing the leaf spring with a composite material. The composite material meets various test requirements of automotive standard due to its good elastic properties, high strength-to-weight ratio and lighter weight than steel. The purpose of the article is to focus on various topics such as weight, stresses during construction, modelling and experimental testing of composite leaf springs. In this work, the stress and deflection analysis of the leaf spring is calculated using the finite element method. Leaf springs are analyzed for stress and deflection in ANSYS 14.5. The results show, based on various calculations and observed data that with similar load capacities, induced stresses and deformations are minimized by replacing the steel leaf springs with fibre composite leaves. The analysis was performed considering the leaf spring engine model with the same dimension geometry to reduce the leaf spring weight. A composite material is chosen for the leaf spring. The analysis was performed on the ANSYS 14.5 spring with the same load condition as the steel and composite leaf springs in terms of strength and weight. From the static analysis and test results, after the design change and stress analysis, the composite leaf springs were minimized by about 71.73% and the stress was reduced by 50-80%.

Structural Design and Analysis of Sliding Composite Mono Leaf Spring

<div>The lightweight structure of a semitrailer composite leaf spring is designed and manufactured using glass fiber composite to replace the conventional steel leaf spring. The sliding composite mono leaf spring was designed based on the conventional parabolic spring design theory. The composites product design (CPD) module of CATIA software is used to create the lamination of the composite leaf spring. Using finite element analysis of the position and proportion of ±45° biaxial layer by OptiStruct software, it is found that a certain proportion (nearly 5%) of a ±45° biaxial layer can effectively reduce the shear stress under the condition of keeping the total number of layers fixed. Then, the natural frequency, stiffness, and strength of the composite leaf spring are simulated by the finite element method. Finally, the stiffness, fatigue, and matching of the designed spring are tested by experiments. The design weight of the composite leaf spring is 18.5 kg, which is 55.4% lighter than the conventional steel leaf spring. The composite mono leaf spring has good fatigue performance; the vertical fatigue cycles are more than 300,000 times, 1.6 times of the traditional steel leaf spring. The results of the system bench test show that the movement state of the composite mono leaf spring is consistent with the steel leaf spring. It can be preliminarily speculated that the composite leaf spring structure can meet the requirement of vehicles. A proposed method combining theoretical analysis, calculation, and finite element simulation can be used to design and test composite products quickly. This method has a high significance for the structural optimization of other laminated composite products.</div>

Design, Analysis and Optimization of a Lightweight Vehicle's Leaf Springs

In recent years, the automobile industry has primarily concentrated on reducing weight and improving ride quality. Because composite materials have a high strength-to-weight ratio, strong corrosion-resistance, and tailorable qualities, Steel leaf springs are being phased out in favour of composite leaf springs in the automotive industry. Three strategies have been investigated to reduce vehicle weight: rationalizing the body structure, using lightweight materials for parts, and reducing vehicle size. This study describes the static and dynamic analysis of steel 55Si2Mn90 parabolic leaf springs as well as composite parabolic leaf springs consisting of E Glass fibre, Carbon fibre, and Kevlar fibre. The goal of this study is to examine the load-carrying capability, stiffness, and weight reduction of composite and steel leaf springs. Dimensions of an existing steel 55Si2Mn90 parabolic leaf spring and a light commercial vehicle's composite parabolic leaf spring are taken. In terms of weight and stress developed, a comparison was made between composite and steel leaf springs. The Kevlar fiber leaf spring, after optimization, is 45.67% lower in weight than other materials and has superior riding quality than a typical steel spring with equal design criteria.

ANSYS based analysis of multi-level parabolic leaf spring systems

Leaf spring systems are mechanical structures used to attenuate or absorb the disruptive factors such as stress, strain, deflection and deformation occurring on dynamic systems. Leaf spring systems may produce different responses to external forces depending on their geometric structures and material properties. Computer-aided analysis of leaf spring systems is crucial in determining the deformation properties and structural properties of the system with high accuracy. In this work, the 10-7, 10-5 and 8-7 multi-level parabolic steel leaf spring systems were analyzed by ANSYS Workbench 18.1 software. In the simulations, the total deformation values emerging under the pressure values of 12.5 Pa, 25.0 Pa and 37.5 Pa and the resonance frequency values for 20 different mode shapes were obtained. The simulation results represent that the highest deformations occur in 8-7 leaf spring system at all pressure values. Furthermore, as a result of the modal analyzes it was observed that the resonance frequencies of 10-7, 10-5 and 8-7 leaf spring systems were respectively occurring at the intervals of [143.17 Hz, 520.89 Hz], [143.98 Hz, 511.4 Hz] and [146.58 Hz, 525.21 Hz].

Design and Analysis of Steel Leaf Spring and Composite Leaf Spring using Finite Element Method Approach

Abstract: The leaf spring's purpose is to stabilize the vehicle because it’s an essentially required element for the suspension systems and assists in supporting the entire load on the vehicle. Hence, the design and analysis of leaf springs are the main focus of this study. To that aim, the CATIA V5 software is used to construct the model, and Ansys Workbench is used to perform static structural analysis. First, the solution is verified using the analytical method and the finite element analysis for structural steel, and then the static structural analysis of structural steel and composite material (CFRP) is compared for the same design. Here, we find that the deformation and stress values of the Composite material are less than that of structural steel.

Design and Analysis of Leaf Spring Using Ansys

Abstract: The leaf springs are different spring styles used for automotive suspension systems. In addition to the use of energy absorption equipment, the ends of the spring can be pointed in a certain direction as it deflects as a structural function. Not primarily supporting vertical loads but isolating road-induced vibration is the principal feature of leaf spring. The present research aims at studying the safe load of the leaf spring, showing how easily an easy, safe driving speed is achieved. A standard TATA-407 light commercial vehicle leaf spring configuration is chosen. Finite element analysis for safe stresses and pay loads has been done. Conventional materials and alternative materials in spring construction used in the present work have been studied. Computer aided designing (CAD) is being widely used in different industries for product testing and manufacturing, this paper consist of design and analysis of leaf spring using ANSYS 19.2. Static structural tool has been used of ANSYS. Leaf springs are used in heavy load vehicle where load is much larger than in passenger vehicles, they are used in vehicles which are limited to varying cycles stress to millions thus eventually leads to failure of fatigue. High elastic material springs are used which possess maximum strength and fatigue effects. Weight reduction is one of the major concern while designing a vehicle as it helps in design optimization and fuel economy’s three layer composite leaf spring with full length leave. E-glass/Epoxy composite material has been used and is compared with conventional steel leaf spring. After conducting various tests it is found that eglass/epoxymaterial is better in strength and lighter in weight as contrast with conventional steel leaf spring.

Design, analysis and optimization of a composite leaf spring for light vehicles

Leaf spring is the most widely used suspension system in automobiles which is subjected to various types of stresses and deflection. Generally, steel is used as a material for the leaf spring but steel is having high density due to which its weight is also more. There is a lot of scopes to replace the steel with other material to reduce the total weight of the vehicle. The advancement in plastic-reinforced fibre is useful for decreasing the weight of the component the composite materials are having high strength and low weight as compared to steel. In this proposed work composite material is used in place of conventional steel. The composite material is made up of glass and fibre called Epoxy resin. Various test is performed to carry out the properties of the composite material. Ant colony optimization approach is used to design and optimization of composite leaf springs. A geometric model of the leaf spring is prepared in the CATIA V5 software and analysis is done. It is found that composite springs can sustain the load the same as that of the steel leaf spring, and less deflection is observed in composite springs than in steel leaf springs. The density of the composite material is low so eventually, weight is also reduced by 70 % to 80%.

LEAF SPRING EYE THICKNESS OPTIMIZATION USING SOLID WORKS AND ANSYS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

“Comparison Analysis of Leaf Spring with Eye Thickness of 18mm and 17mm Using Solid works, and Performance Analysis Using ANSYS ˮ was the subject of a study. The specific load and Unladen load were used to compare the eye thicknesses of 17 mm and 18 mm. The leaf springs in the vehicles make the passengers more comfortable by reducing vertical vibration caused by the unevenness of the road geometry. When a spring loses its shape over time, the life of the spring decreases, which can cause the weight distribution on four wheels to change and make it difficult to handle. The cause of leaf spring failure is truck driving conditions such as braking, cornering, and path hole striking, which will exert tensional forces on the spring. Designing a suitable eye with increased thickness for a leaf spring can increase the life, and Static Structural analysis is performed to understand the life of the Steel leaf spring

Static analysis on mono composite leaf spring for Maruti 800 light vehicles

In this paper design and analysis of composite leaf spring made of glassfiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) and sisal fiber reinforced polymer (SFRP). In addition, to compare the load carrying capacity, stiffness and weight savings of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The dimensions of conventional steel leaf spring are used to fabricate a composite mono leaf spring using GFRP unidirectional laminates. Static analysis of 2-D model of conventional leaf spring is also performed using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and compared with experimental results. and the analytical results are compared with experimental results from the analysis it is observed that Sisal fiber /Epoxy mono composite leaf spring showing best results as compared to the other materials

Mechanical characterization, and comparison of stress-induced on mono and multi-leaf spring from laminated composite material

Currently, one of the main issues in the automotive industry is the weight reduction of the body. In this study, analysis of multi from steel, and mono leaf spring from composite material and comparison of stress-induced on the applied load in finite element analysis was studied. The three-dimensional (3D) modeling of the leaf spring was done on SOLIDWORK 17 and analyzed using ANSYS R 18.1 workbench and the stacking sequence is, [45/0/0/0/0/0/-45/90] s. From static analysis, it is observed that weight reduction of leaf spring is achieved 70.01% in case of the composite than steel, and the equivalent stress-induced and deformation is carbon/epoxy composite leaf spring is 60% and 6.16% respectively less than steel leaf spring for the same load-carrying capacity respectively. From the study, it is concluded newly designed carbon/epoxy mono composite leaf spring has better performance than the steel leaf spring.

Design and Analysis of a Heavy Vehicle Leaf Spring

ABSTRACT: Decreasing weight while expanding or keeping up quality of items is getting the chance to be very imperative research issue in this present day world. Composite materials are one of the material families which are pulling in analysts and being arrangements of such issue. In this paper we depict outline and investigation of composite leaf spring. The goal is to think about the stresses and weight sparing of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The plan requirement is firmness. The Vehicle Industry has awesome enthusiasm for supplanting of steel leaf spring with that of composite leaf spring, since the composite materials has high quality to weight proportion, great consumption resistance. The material chose was glass fibre fortified polymer (E-glass/epoxy), carbon epoxy and graphite epoxy is utilized against regular steel. The outline parameters were chosen and dissected with the goal of limiting weight of the composite leaf spring when contrasted with the steel leaf spring. The leaf spring was displayed in catiav5r20 and the investigation was finished utilizing ANSYS 17.02 programming.

Design Analysis and Weight Optimization of Mono Leaf Spring by Using ANSYS and Validation with Practical Testing

Abstract: The present paper having a work on Design and analysis of composite leaf spring. The analysis has been conducted by using ANSYS-14.5 workbench software with the help of static structural tool. Two composite leaf springs with full length leave made of E-Glass fiber and Carbon fiber composite material has been used. The results of Conventional steel leaf spring have been compared with the present results obtained for composite leaf spring. Carbon fiber material is better in strength and lighter in weight as compared to the conventional steel leaf spring as well as Glass fiber leaf spring. We worked on different loading condition to validated UTM result with hand calculation and ANSYS result.

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

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.

Optimization of Various Percentage of Fibers in Fiber Reinforced Composite Material Leaf Springs in Vehicles

A spring steel leaf spring is commonly used for suspension system in all types of loading vehicles due to its good stiffness and fatigue strength. Today, spring steel leaf springs are used in majority of applications but they are heavy in weight, poor in terms of gets corrosion resistance and average in ride comfort. Fiber reinforced composite material leaf spring represents a key application of composite materials in the field of automotive vehicles due to improved ride comfort and light in weight. Stiffness, fatigue life and damping capacity are the critical parameter of fiber reinforced composite leaf springs. CAE software and experimental analysis have been mainly used for design and analysis for composite material leaf springs. Saman Jolaiy et.al. [2021] focused on the damping characteristics of the composite leaf springs and worked out that fabrication of composite leaf spring with viscoelastic core(2mm) decreases the damping ratio of the leaf spring system, which results in a smooth ride. Few studies evaluated the stress distribution, deflection and fatigue life assessment of composite leaf springs reinforced with glass fibers or carbon fibers or combination of carbon lass and carbon fibers. The main objective of the present work is to optimize various percentage of fiber reinforced composite material leaf springs along with insertion of viscous core. The optimized results thus obtained show that the fiber reinforced composite leaf springs with viscous core can be a good replacement of spring steel leaf springs with overall weight reduction and better damping characteristics. Replacing spring steel leaf springs with fiber reinforced composite leaf springs will improve safety, comfort, high elastic strain energy storage capacity and durability.

Analysis of the Vibration Characteristics of a Leaf Spring System Using Artificial Neural Networks.

The real-time vibrations occurring in a leaf spring system may cause undesirable effects, such as stresses, strains, deflections, and surface deformations over the system. In order to detect the most appropriate working conditions in which the leaf spring system will work more stably and also to design optimized leaf spring systems, these external effects have to be detected with high accuracy. In this work, artificial neural network-based estimators have been proposed to analyze the vibration effects on leaf spring systems. In the experimental studies carried out, the vibration effects of low, medium, and high-pressure values applied by a hydraulic piston on a steel leaf spring system have been analyzed by a 3-axial accelerometer. After the experimental studies, the Radial Basis Artificial Neural Network (RBANN) and Cascade-Forward Back-Propagation Artificial Neural Network (CFBANN) based nonlinear artificial neural network structures have been proposed to analyze the vibration data measured from the leaf spring system under relevant working conditions. The simulation results represent that the RBANN structure can estimate the real-time vibrations occurring on the leaf spring system with higher accuracy and reaches lower RMS error values when compared to the CFBANN structure. In general, it can be concluded that the RBANN and CFBANN network structures can successfully be used in the estimation of real-time vibration data.