Pannur (Vil), Ramagiri (MDL), Peddapalli-505212, Telangana (India)

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING MANTHANI

Pannur (Vil), Ramagiri (Mdl), Peddapalli-505212, Telangana (India).
DEPARTMENT MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
GANGAVATH SRIKANTH - 16VD1A0344 Head of Mechanical dept.

PILLI AJAY - 16VD1A0303 DR. CH.SRIDHAR REDDY
ALAKANTI ARAVIND - 16VD1A0308 Under the guidance of
KOGILA PRASHANTH - 16VD1A0327 Mr. ARUN KUMAR.E
CONTENTS
• ABSTRACT
• INTRODUCTION
• LEAF SPRINGS
• COMPOSITE MATERIALS
• COMPOSITE LEAF SPRINGS
• ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
• ADVANTAGES OF COMPOSITE LEAF SPRING
• MERITS AND DEMERITS
• CONCLUSION
ABSTRACT
Reducing weight while increasing or maintaining strength of products is getting to be highly important
research issue in this modern world. Composite materials are one of the material families which are
attracting researchers and being solutions of such issue. In this paper we describe design and analysis of
composite leaf spring. For this purpose, a rear leaf spring for MAHINDRA “MODEL-COMMANDER
650 DI” is considered.
The objective is to compare the stresses, deformations and weight saving of composite leaf spring with
that of steel leaf spring. The design constraint is stiffness. The Automobile Industry has great interest for
replacement of steel leaf spring with that of composite leaf spring, since the composite materials has high
strength to weight ratio, good corrosion resistance.
The material selected was glass fiber reinforced polymer (E-glass/epoxy) is used against conventional
steel. The design parameters were selected and analyzed with the objective of minimizing weight of the
composite leaf spring as compared to the steel leaf spring.
Result shows that, the weight of composite leaf spring was nearly reduced up to 85% compared with steel
material. The leaf spring was modeled in Pro/ENGINEER and the analysis was done using ANSYS 12.0
software. The fatigue life of both steel and composite leaf is compared using ANSYS software.
INTRODUCTION:
Composite materials are the one of the main applications of the aerospace,
automobiles and marine Industries. Because of their less weight, good
stiffness and less corrosive properties.Weight reduction is one of the major
factors of that one. It results in less fuel consumption; economize maintenance
of vehicle and optimum utilization of natural resources. The suspension leaf
spring is one of the potential items for weight reduction in automobile
LEAF SPRING:
• A leaf spring is a simple type of suspension spring commonly used
in heavy duty vehicles.
• Leaf springs also known as flat spring are made out of flat plates.
• Leaf springs are designed two ways: multi-leaf and mono-leaf
TYPES OF LEAF SPRINGS:
• Double eye
• Slipper-open eye end
• Slipper-hook end
• Slipper-flat end
• Slipper-radius end
COMPOSITE MATERIAL:
• Composite materials (also called composition materials or shortened to

composites) are materials made from two or more constituent materials with
significantly different physical or chemical properties, that when combined,
produce a material with characteristics different from the individual
components. The individual components remain separate and distinct within
the finished structure. The new material may be preferred for many reasons:
common examples include materials which are stronger, lighter or less
expensive when compared to traditional materials.
• Generally we use E-Glass/Epoxy or GFRP for composite
COMPOSITE LEAF SPRINGS :
Mechanical Symbols Units Values
Young’s E Gpa 207
modulus
Shear modulus G Gpa 80
Poisson’s ratio µ - 0.3
Density p Kj/m3 7600

Yield strength Sy Mpa 370
Table 1 Mechanical Properties of Steel

S. No Properties Eglass/Epoxy
1 EX(MPa) 43000
2 EY(MPa) 6500
3 EZ(MPa) 6500
4 PRXY 0.27
5 PRYZ 0.06
6 PRZX 0.06
7 GX(MPA) 4500
8 GY(MPA) 2500
9 GZ(MPA) 2500
10 p 0.000002
Table 2 Properties of composite materials

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS:
• Leaf Spring is Modeled in PRO-E and it is imported to ANSYS
and then it is subjected to different load conditions and changes
like Stress, Strain,Bending Von Mises Stress, Deformation will
be taken as graphs and Ansys results We analyze the variations
from values shown by ansys.We compare parameters of both
leaf spring and composite leaf spring.
• Some of the ansys and tabular results are shown below
Analysis Results
FOR STEEL
Deformations In Steel
Values of deformation: Maximum:73.909mm
Stresses in Steel
Values of von mises stresses: Maximum: 352.917MPa
For E-glass/epoxy:
Deformation In E Glass/Epoxy
Values of deformation:Maximum: 52.346mm
Stresses In E Glass/Epoxy
Values of von-mises stresses:Maximum: 178.356MPa
Fatigue Analysis of Steel At Fixed Support
Fatigue of steel at fixed
Events Loads (N) Applied Stress intensityno. cycles Partial
cycles MPa usage
1 1600 50,000 305.43 1.00E+06 0.05
2 2000 50,000 381.79 3.31E+05 0.1512
3 3000 50,000 572.69 2598 19.242
4 4000 50,000 763.59 10 5000
5 5000 50,000 954.48 10 5000
Fatigue Analysis of Eglass/Epoxy At Fixed Support
Fatigue of steel at fixed
Events Loads Applied Stress intensity no. cycles Partial
cycles MPa usage
1 1600 50000 174.33 3.12E+06 0.01603
2 2000 50000 217.91 1.95E+06 0.02558
3 3000 50000 326.86 6.79E+05 0.07359
4 4000 50000 435.81 1.86E+05 0.26916
5 5000 50000 544.77 4.71E+04 1.06121
Graph:1 Usage factor comparison for steel and Eglass/epoxy
Graph:2 Stress intensities vs load for steel and Eglass/epoxy
Graph:3 Resultant deformation in steel and Eglass/epoxy
Graph 4 The stress comparison between steel and Eglass
Advantages of Composite leaf spring suspension:
• Minimum wear and tear of body parts and tyre due to delicate tendency of
absorbing road shocks, jerks and vibrations.
• Softer ride, Lower noise level, excellent stability due to better damping
characteristics.
• Excellent corrosion resistance against atmospheric pollutants.
• Five times stronger than conventional metal leaf springs.
• Fully interchangeable with the conventional spring without any modifications.
• Increase in fuel efficiency due to better aerodynamics and around 60% weight
reduction.
• No cracking sound since mono leaf and hence no inter leaf friction and no
greasing required.
Demerits of Conventional Leaf Spring:
• Demerits of Conventional Leaf Spring:

• They have less specific modulus and strength Increased weight.
• Conventional leaf springs are usually manufactured and assembled by
using number of leafs made of steel and hence the weight is more.
• Its corrosion resistance is less compared to composite materials
• Steel leaf springs have less damping
CONCLUSION
• As leaf spring contributes considerable amount of weight to the vehicle
and needs to be strong enough. a single composite leaf spring is designed
and it is shown that the resulting design and simulation stresses are much
below the strength properties of the material satisfying the maximum
stress failure criterion
• From the static analysis results, we see that the von- mises stress in the
steel is 352.917 MPa. And the von- mises stress in glass Epoxy is
178.356MPa.
• Composite mono leaf spring reduces the weight by nearly 84% forE-
Glass/Epoxy.
• From the fatigue analysis results, the usage factor of Eglass Epoxy is very
ww much less compared to steel. Hence it is advantageous to replace
steel leaf spring with E Glass Epoxy.

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JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING MANTHANI

GANGAVATH SRIKANTH - 16VD1A0344 Head of Mechanical dept.

• Composite materials (also called composition materials or shortened to

Poisson’s ratio µ - 0.3

Density p Kj/m3 7600

Table 1 Mechanical Properties of Steel

Table 2 Properties of composite materials

• Demerits of Conventional Leaf Spring:

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