Design and Optimization of Leaf Spring Using Composites

Abstract

Leaf spring are designed for  the suspension in wheeled vehicles.  Now a days all The automobile industries increased interest in the replacement of steel spring with fiberglass composite leaf spring for high strength to weight ratio. In this work a leaf spring  are designed for heavy vehicle.  In this designing leaf spring following four cases are considered: by modifying the thickness, and no. of leaves, changing camber and changing span. These cases are also considered: Modeling of Road Irregularity, Variation of moving frequency with vehicle speed. Present used material is Steel for leaf spring. In this work, the material is replaced with composites since they are less dense than steel and have good strength The composites used are S2 – Glass Fiber and Epoxy Matrix Composite reinforced by 50% Kevlar fibers. The design is made for leaf spring using Mild Steel, S2 – Glass Fiber and Epoxy Matrix Composite reinforced by 50% Kevlar fibers and all the models are designed in CATIA. . The strength validation is done using FEA software ANSYS. Analysis is done by layer stacking method for composites by changing reinforcement angles for 3 layers, 5 layers and 11 layers. Frequency analysis is also determine the frequencies. CATIA software is used for modeling and ANSYS is used for analysis.