Analysis Of Composite Leaf Spring Using Fea For Light Vehicle Mini Truck

Abstract

The Automobile Industry has shown increase interest for replacement of steel leaf spring with that of composite leaf spring, since the composite material has high strength to weight ratio, good corrosion resistance and tailor-able properties. The paper describes static analysis of steel leaf spring and laminated composite Multi leaf spring. The objective is to compare the load carrying capacity, stiffness and weight savings of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The dimensions of an existing conventional steel leaf spring of a Light design calculations. Static Analysis of 3-D model of conventional leaf spring is performed using ANSYS 11.0 and hyper mesh. Same dimensions are used in composite multi leaf spring using carbon/Epoxy and Graphite/Epoxy unidirectional laminates. The load carrying capacity, and weight of composite leaf spring are compared with that of steel leaf spring. The design constraints are stresses and deflection. A weight reduction of 79.617 % is achieved by using composite leaf spring. And if consider Mono leaf spring then Weight reduction is achieved 90.09%.