Design, Manufacturing and Testing of Polymer Composite Multi-Leaf Spring for Light Passenger Automobiles - A Review

Abstract

The automobile industry has shown increased interest in the replacement of steel spring with composite leaf spring due to high strength to weight ratio. This work deals with the replacement of multi-leaf steel spring with mono composite leaf spring. Suspension system in an automobile determines the riding comfort of passengers and the amount of damage to the vehicle. The main function of leaf spring assembly as suspension element is not only to support vertical load, but also to isolate road-induced vibrations. The behavior of leaf spring is complicated due to its clamping effects and inter-leaf contact etc. The objective of this paper is to replace the multi-leaf steel spring by mono composite leaf spring for the same load carrying capacity and stiffness. Since the composite materials have more elastic strain energy storage capacity and high strength-to-weight ratio as compared to those of steel. It is possible to reduce the weight of the leaf spring without any reduction on load carrying capacity and stiffness. The design constraints were limiting stresses and displacement. Modeling and analysis of both the steel and composite leaf springs have been done using ANSYS software.