Static analysis and fatigue life prediction of steel and composite leaf spring for light passenger vehicles

Abstract

This paper describes static and fatigue analysis of steel leaf spring and composite multi leaf spring made of glass fibre reinforced polymer. Primary objective is to compare the load carrying capacity, stiffness and weight savings of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The design constraints are stresses and deflections. Finite element analysis with full bump load on 3-D model of composite multi leaf spring was done using ANSYS 7.1 and analytical results were compared with experimental results. Composite leaf spring had 67.35% lesser stress, 64.95% higher stiffness and 126.98% higher natural frequency than that of existing steel leaf spring. A weight reduction of 68.15 % was also achieved by using composite leaf spring. Fatigue life of composite leaf spring (10, 00,000 cycles) was more than that of conventional steel leaf spring (2, 00,000 cycles).