Experimental & Finite element Analysis of Composite Mono Leaf Spring

Abstract

In order to economize energy and conserve natural resources, weight reduction has been the main focus of automobile manufacturers in the present scenario. The increasing competition and innovations in automobile sector tends to modify the existing products or replacing old products by new and advanced materials. More efforts have taken in order to increase the comfort of user. The aim of this paper is to present a low cost fabrication of complete mono composite leaf spring. Single leaf, variable thickness, variable width spring of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) with similar mechanical and geometrical properties to the multi leaf steel spring, was designed, fabricated and tested. The finite element analysis of composite spring carried using ANSYS software. The experimental test is carried to verify the FEA result. Comparison between the performance of the GFRP and the multi leaf steel springs is presented.