International Journal of Emerging trends in Engineering and Development Available online on http://www.rspublication.com/ijeted/ijeted_index.

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DESIGN AND STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE MULTI LEAF SPRING Dara Ashok 1, M.V. Mallikarjun2 and Venkata Ramesh Mamilla3 1 PG Student, 2 Professor, 3Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering QIS College of Engineering & Technology Ongole 523272, Andhra Pradesh, India ___________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT Leaf springs are one of the oldest suspension components which are still frequently used, especially in automobile vehicles. These are used to absorb the fluctuating loads from the vehicle. In This paper gives the information about design and structural analysis of composite leaf spring made of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP). Leaf spring consist two full length leaves in which one is with eyed ends and five graduated length leaves. The material of the conventional leaf spring is 65Si7. The material for the composite leaf spring is E-Glass/Epoxy unidirectional laminates or GFRP. Dimensions of the composite leaf spring are to be taken as the same dimensions of the conventional leaf spring for modeling. The objective is to compare the load carrying capacity, stiffness and weight savings of composite leaf spring with that of steel leaf spring. The finite element modeling and analysis of a multi leaf spring has been carried out. The FE model of the leaf spring has been generated in Pro-E 4.0 and imported in ANSYS-11 for finite element analysis, which are most popular CAE tools. The FE analysis of the leaf spring has been performed by discretization of the model in infinite nodes and elements and refining them under defined boundary condition. The design constraints are stresses and deflections. A comparison of both i.e. theoretical analysis and FEA results have been done to conclude. Key words: Multi leaf spring, FEA, CAE tools, Composite leaf spring, ANSYS ___________________________________________________________________________ 1.0 INTRODUCTION Multi leaf spring carries lateral loads, brake torque, driving torque in addition to shock absorbing. Advantages of leaf spring over helical spring are that the ends of the springs are guided along a definite path and it is act as a structural member. It is well known that springs, are designed to absorb and store energy and then release it slowly. Ability to store and absorb more amount of strain energy ensures the comfortable suspension system. Hence, the strain energy of the material becomes a major factor in designing the springs. The relationship of the specific strain energy can be expressed as

Where is the strength, is the mass density and E is the Youngs modulus of the spring material. It can easily understand that material having lower modulus and density

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

will have a greater specific strain energy capacity. It helps in achieving the vehicle with improved riding qualities. Increasing competition and innovations in automobile sector tends to modify the existing products or replacing old products by new and advanced material products. The suspension leaf spring is one of the potential items for weight reduction in automobiles because with steel (65Si7) it accounts 10% - 20% spring weight carried by its own. To avoid this disadvantage and comfort riding qualities an attempt has been made in replacing the material with advanced materials like composite materials. In composite materials, GFRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer) have chosen as spring material. Because it is 1.5-2 times stronger than the steel armature and high strength to weight ratio. It weighs 3.5 4 times less than the steel armature. Hence, Automobile sector is showing an increased interest in the area of composite material leaf springs. The stress strain curves for the composites and conventional steel shown in the below figure-1.

Fig-1: Stress Strain curve between steel and GFRP This paper is mainly focused on the implementation of composite materials by replacing steel in conventional leaf springs of a suspension system to reduce product development cost, weight, improving the safety, comfort and durability. The composite materials having more elastic strain energy storage capacity due to low youngs modulus and low density than steel. In this present work, a seven-leaf steel spring used in mahindra cabstar vehicle is replaced with a composite multi leaf spring made of E-glass/epoxy composites. The dimensions and the number of leaves for both steel leaf spring and composite leaf springs are considered to be the same. The introduction of composite materials was made it possible to reduce the weight of the leaf spring without any reduction of load carrying capacity. The primary objective is to compare their load carrying capacity, stiffness and weight savings of composite leaf spring. Page 31

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

1.1 SPECIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM

Figure-2:2D drawing of leaf spring 1.2 Specification of conventional Material The material used for the experimental work is 65Si7 .The chemical composition of the material is shown below Table-1: Chemical composition of 65Si7 GRADE 65Si7 C% 0.60-0.68 Si% 1.5-1.8 Mn % 0.7-1.0 P% .05 max S% .05 max Cr% ---

1.3 Design Parameters for Conventional Leaf Spring material Table-2: The mechanical properties 65Si7 leaf spring Parameter Material selected- steel Youngs Modulus, E Poissons Rat io BHN Tensile strength Ultimate Tensile strength Yield Leaf span Spring stiffness Density Width of all leaves Thickness of the spring Value 65Si7 2.1* 105 N/mm2 0.266 455-461 460 MPa 250 MPa 1150mm 97 N/mm 0.00000785 kg/mm3 70mm 9 mm

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

2.0 SELECTION OF COMPOSITE MATERIAL As mentioned earlier, the ability to absorb and store more amount of energy of a suspension system leads the comfortable riding of the vehicle. This can be achieved by introducing composite material, in place of steel in the conventional leaf spring. Based on specific strain energy of steel spring and some composite materials, E-glass/epoxy is selected as spring material having the mechanical properties given in table-3. 2.1 Design Parameters for Composite Leaf Spring material Table 3: The mechanical properties of E-glass/epoxy Properties Tensile modulus along X-direction (Ex), MPa Tensile modulus along Y-direction (Ey), MPa Tensile modulus along Z-direction (Ez), MPa Tensile strength of the material, MPa Compressive strength of the material, MPa Shear modulus along XY-direction (Gxy), MPa Shear modulus along YZ-direction (Gyz), MPa Shear modulus along ZX-direction (Gzx), MPa Poisson ratio along XY-direction (NUxy) Poisson ratio along YZ-direction (NUyz) Poisson ratio along ZX-direction (NUzx) Mass density of the material (), kg/mm3 Flexural modulus of the material, MPa Flexural strength of the material, MPa Value 34000 6530 6530 900 450 2433 1698 2433 0.217 0.366 0.217 2.6106 40000 1200

3.0 MODELING & FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS A CAD model design with conventional and composite materials of multi-leaf spring is created in Pro-E 4.0 .Pro-E having special tools in generating surface design to construct typical surfaces, which are later converted into solid models. Solid model of all parts of the structures are then assembled to make a complete structure.

Figure-4: conventional leaf spring in pro-e

Figure-5: composite leaf spring in pro-e Page 33

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

The CAD model of multi leaf spring with conventional and composite materials used for FE Analysis during assembly is shown in figure-2 &3. The multi leaf spring model for conventional leaf spring and composite leaf springs are imported in ANSYS-11 workbench. A stress-deflection analysis is performed using finite element analysis (FEA). The complete procedure of analysis has been done using ANSYS-11 Workbench. Generally to conduct finite element analysis process is divided into three main phases preprocessor, solution and postprocessor. The preprocessor is a program that processes the input data to produce the output that is used as input to the subsequent phase (solution). Solution phase is completely automatic. The FEA software generates the element matrices, computes nodal values and derivatives, and stores the result data in files. These files are further used by the subsequent phase (postprocessor) to review and analyze the results through the graphic display and tabular listings. The output from the solution phase is in the numerical form and consists of nodal values of the field variable and its derivatives. For example, in structural analysis, the output is nodal displacement and stress in the elements. The postprocessor processes results data and displays them in graphical form to check or analyze the result. The graphical output gives the detailed information about the required result data. The boundary conditions of the multi leafs spring in preprocessor stage are shown below. 3.1 Boundary conditions in ANSYS-11

Figure-6: Conventional leaf spring

Figure-7: Composite leaf spring

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS As the finite element analysis of multi leaf spring is performed using ANSYS-11 workbench. The multi leaf spring for conventional steel showing deflection and bending stress under load is shown in figure-8 and Figue-9. The comparison between theoretical and finite element analysis results as shown in table-4. Table-4: Comparison between theoretical and FEA results Theoretical Parameter Results for steel leaf spring Load 4365 Deflection 45 Bending Stress 789.7 Stiffness 97 4.1 Conventional (steel) leaf spring FEA Results for steel leaf spring 4365 45.2 790.76 96.5

Variation Nil .442% .134% .515%

Figure-8: Total deformation

Figure-9: Bending stress

After that the multi leaf spring with composite material (GFRP) is analyzed in ANSYS Workbench 11 with same dimension as in conventional leaf spring showing deflection and bending stress under load is shown in figure-10 and Figue11 and the comparison between steel leaf spring and composite leaf spring for deflection and bending stress results from the ANSYS Workbench shown in the table-5.

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

Results for Composite leaf spring

Figure-10: Total deformation Figure-11: Bending stress Table-5: FEA results Comparison between steel and composite leaf spring Parameter Load Deflection Bending Stress Stiffness FEA Results for steel leaf spring 4365 45.2 790.76 96.5 FEA Results for composite leaf spring 4365 55.8 595.3 78.2 Variation Nil 19% -24% -19%

By the comparison results between steel leaf spring and the composite leaf spring from ANSYS workbench the deflection is increased 19% in composite leaf spring that is within the camber range and the stiffness is decreased by 19% means it absorbs more energy as compared in steel leaf spring which leads to good comfort raiding. The bending stresses are decreased by 24% in composite leaf spring means less stress induced with same load carrying conditions. The conventional multi leaf spring weighs about 2 3 kg whereas the Eglass/Epoxy multi leaf spring weighs only 8 kg. Thus the weight reduction of 65.2% is achieved. By the reduction of weight and the less stresses, the fatigue life of composite leaf spring is to be higher than that of steel leaf spring. Totally it is fond that the composite leaf spring is the better that of steel leaf spring. 5.0 CONCLUSION A semi-elliptical graduated multi leaf spring is designed for a four wheel automobile and that semi-elliptical multi leaf steel spring is replaced with a composite multi leaf spring made of E-glass/epoxy composites. Dimensions and number of leaves of steel leaf spring (SLS) and composite leaf spring (CLS) are considered to be same. The Primary objective is compared their load carrying capacity, stiffness and weight savings of CLS. Page 36

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ISSN 2249-6149 Issue 2, Vol.5 (July 2012)

Ride comfort of both SLS and CLS has to found and compared. Also, fatigue life of SLS and CLS has to found with the FEA (Finite Element Analysis) software- ANSYS 11.0. The performance between steel and composite leaf springs the analytical & simulation studies and life data analysis has to be studied with analysis software ANSYS 11.0 and shown that the performance of the composite leaf spring better than the conventional leaf spring.. Totally it is found that the composite leaf spring is the better that of steel leaf spring. Therefore, it is concluded that composite multi leaf spring is an effective replacement for the existing steel leaf spring in vehicles. 6.0 REFERENCES 1. G.S.Shiva Shankar, S.Vijayarangan(2006), Mono Composite Leaf Spring for Light Weight Vehicle Design, End Joint Analysis and Testing, ISSN 13921320 Materials Science (MEDIAGOTYRA). Vol. 12, No. 3. 2006:page.no:220-225 2. Vinkel Arora,Dr. M.L Aggarwal,Dr. Gian Bhushan(2011), A Comparative Study of CAE and Experimental Results of Leaf Springs in Automotive vehicles. Int. Jr.of Engineering Science and Technology Vol-3. page.no:5856-5866 3. M.Venkatesan , D.helmen devaraj(2012) , Design And Analysis Of Composite Leaf Spring In Light Vehicle int. jr. of modern engineering research Vol.2: pp-213-218 4. M.M.Patunkar,D.R.Dolas(2011),Modeling and Analysis of Composite Leaf Spring under the Static Load Condition by using FEA Int.Jr of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Vol1:page.no-1-4 5. Senthil kumar and Vijayarangan(2007), Analytical and Experimental studies on Fatigue life Prediction of steel leaf soring and composite leaf multi leaf spring for Light passanger veicles using life data analysis ISSN-1392-1320 material science Vol. 13. 6. Rajendran, I.,Vijayarangan, S(2001). Optimal Design of a Composite Leaf Spring using Genetic Algorithms Int. Jr. of Computer and Structures 79: pp. 1121 1129. 7. Vinkel Aror, Dr. M.L Aggarwal and Dr. Gian Bhushan A Comparative Study of CAE and Experimental Results of Leaf Springs in Automotive Vehicles Int. Jr. of Computer and Structures. 8. Y.X. Zhang , C.H. Yang Recent developments in finite element analysis for laminated composite plates science direct Composite Structures 88 (2009) 147157. 9. R.S. Khurmi, J.K. Kupta. A text book of Machine Design, 2000, Chapter. 23, Page. No (866-900).

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