• Composites Research
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2004

The present paper is concerned with the optimum design of taper spring, in which the static spring rate of the fiber-reinforcement composite material spring is fitted to that of the steel leaf spring. The thickness and width of springs were selected as design variables. The object functions of the regression model were obtained through the analysis with a common analytic program. After regression coefficients were calculated to get functions of the regression model, optimal solutions were calculated with DOT. E-glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy were used as fiber reinforcement materials in the design, which were compared and analyzed with the steel leaf spring. The result of the static spring rates show that optimized composite leaf springs agree with steel leaf spring within 1%.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2003.11a
• /
• pp.1127-1132
• /
• 2003

Suspension system of vehicle have enough endurance during its life time to protect passenger. Spring is one of major part of vehicle. Thus, a fatigue strength evaluation for leaf spring based on road load response was carried out. At first, strain of leaf spring is measured on the city condition and proving ground condition. And next, the damage analysis of road load response data was carried out. And fatigue test of leaf spring were also carried out. Based on -N life relation, fatigue life of leaf spring was evaluated at belgian mode, city mode and drawing test specification. After that, it is compared the design life of leaf spring and evaluated fatigue life by belgian mode, city mode and drawing test specification. From the above, the maximum load-fatigue life relation of leaf spring was defined by test. and new test target of belgian mode and city mode was proposed to accept design specification of leaf spring. It is expect that proposed test target can verify leaf spring fatigue endurance at specific road condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.12 no.7
• /
• pp.82-91
• /
• 1995

Many kind of springs are used in the suspension of automotive vehicles and among these the leaf spring and the air spring are included. These two springs have not been generally used together in one suspension, but recently the automotive models which use these two springs together increase. This reason is due to the merit of the combination of two type springs. The merits are two. One is the character of air spring, that is, the natural frequen- cy of system is constant in spite of variable weight. The other is the character of leaf spring, that is, the suspension mechanism is simple. The combination spring is used in medium size and special purpose bus. In this paper, we formulate the condition which the leaf spring must satisfy to be optimal design in the combination spring. And experiment is performed to prove the theory. The results are that the combination spring is better than leaf spring in the ride, and that the purposed theory is good for the combination spring design.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2000.11a
• /
• pp.620-623
• /
• 2000

The leaf spring is generally used effectively in load supporting because it has tension-diffused function in comparison with other springs. Nowadays the leaf spring is used widely in the suspensions of automobile and trains. The stiffness and the damping characteristics of the leaf spring being essential for the performance of vehicles, the exact evaluation is required. Various approximate formula are normally used for the leaf spring design. however, accuracy and trust are decreased because the contact and frictional characteristics between leaf plates are generally neglected. In this paper, nonlinear stiffness matrix of the leaf spring is solved by contact-element applying FEM for considering the contact and frictional characteristics between leaf plates. The results of proposed FE model are compared with test data.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
• /
• v.6 no.6
• /
• pp.671-676
• /
• 2005

Spring is one of major suspension part of the light commercial vehicle (LCV). In the manufacturing process it is shot-peened to improve its fatigue strength. In this paper, residual stresses by shot peening were calculated through finite element analysis, and the effects of these residual stresses on fatigue strength of leaf spring were evaluated. Fatigue tests were performed with two kinds of specimens; one is actual leaf spring assembly, and the other is simulated 3-point bending specimen. Fatigue tests were performed under the loading condition that was measured on the proving ground. From the results, the maximum load-fatigue life relation of leaf spring was defined, and test results of 3 point bending specimen are in good agreement with those of leaf spring assembly. The effects of residual stresses by shot peening on fatigue strength of leaf spring is not large in the high load range, however, in the low load range, its effects were not negligible.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.47 no.3
• /
• pp.443-454
• /
• 2013

A leaf spring, especially the longitudinal type is liable and persistent element in automotive suspension system. In the present scenario the composite materials are widely used in the automobile industries has shown a great interest in the replacement of steel spring due to high strength by weight ratio. Previous investigations focused on stresses and displacement analysis of single leaf spring for different materials. The present work aims to design and analysis of leaf spring for two different cases by considering the Young's modulus to yield strength ratio. In the first case the analysis deals with the design and analysis of a single cantilever solid triangle beam which is an equivalent beam of a spring with three leaves having uniform strength. In the second case a 3-beams of rectangular cross section has been considered which is equivalent to a spring with three leaves. The analysis was carried out based on contact mechanics approach. The results were compared, that the fiberglass composite leaf spring is suitable for high loading capacity, reliability and efficiency.

• Journal of the korean Society of Automotive Engineers
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.42-57
• /
• 1979

The behavior of the tepered leaf spring which nowadays is used on the automobile parts is studied to obtain the optimum design values by the stress analysis based on the tapered leaf spring model and the experiments to find the static stress, fatigue stress, and also car running stress. This study shows the clear conclusion of the stress distribution of spring assembly and dynamic behavior of the tapered leaf spring under the condition of the running rest at some conditioned roads.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.21 no.8
• /
• pp.1276-1290
• /
• 1997

The previous elastic stiffness formulas of leaf type holddown spring assemblies(HDSs) have been corrected and extended to be able to consider the point of taper runout for the TT-HDS and all the strain energies for both the TT-HDS and the TW-HDS based on Euler beam theory and Castigliano'stheorem. The elastic stiffness sensitivity of the leaf type holddown spring assemblies was analyzed using the derived elastic stiffness formulas and their gradient vectors obtained from the mid-point formula. As a result of the sensitivity analysis, the elastic stiffness sensitivity at each design variable is quantified and design variables having remarkable sensitivity are identified. Among the design variables, leaf thickness is identified as that of having the most remarkable sensitivity of the elastic stiffness. In addition, it was found that the sensitivity of the leaf type HDS's elastic stiffness is exponentially correlated to the leaf thickness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2012.10a
• /
• pp.835-836
• /
• 2012

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.20-32
• /
• 1995

Springs for vehicle suspension control the vibration of a car and influence on the ridability, safety, and life of a car. In the paper, the computer aided design program has been developed, which design the leaf spring shape from the given specifications using basic theory and the expert's knowledge, and the design results are checked by the analysis theory in order to increase the accuracy, and feed back to the design input. For the purpose of easy use, this program consists of pull-down menu and interactive input mode. To prove the effectiveness of this program. two springs, of which one is symmetric, other asymmetric, are designed and analyzed, and the outputs are compared to the experiments. Considering the tolerance of the given specifications, the results are good.