Finite Element Analysis and Optimization of Composite Leaf Spring for Light Passenger Vehicle

Abstract

In the making of fuel efficient vehicle gross weight of the vehicle is biggest enemy for
automotive vehicle designers. The engineer’s to way to reduce gross weight of the vehicle is
opting a modern engineering material with better material properties such as fiber reinforced
polymer composites. When there is need for weight reduction along with better material
properties composites are better potential candidates. There are numerous automotive parts
which can be with composite. In this present study the simplest part called leaf spring which
is responsible for absorb road shocks and vehicle stability has been considered. In this
present work initially reverse engineering to be carried out on existing metal leaf spring to
record dimensions and type of leaf sprig. In next steps there type of composite material has
been considered for leaf spring namely E glass epoxy, carbon epoxy and graphite epoxy. The
composite optimization has been carried out using optistruct® to find optimal composite
material system and after optimizing again stress analysis has been carried out to find stress
and displacement. The obtained results good in agreement.