MATERIAL SELECTION PROCESS FOR LEAF SPRINGS

USED IN VEHICLE SUSPENSION SYSTEM

Term Paper Report

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Technology
in
Machine Design

by

YALAMANCHILI RAJESH

(Roll No.: M140250ME)

Department of Mechanical Engineering

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CALICUT
April 2015

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the report entitled MATERIAL SELECTION
PROCESS FOR LEAF SPRINGS USED IN VEHICLE SUSPENSION SYSTEM
is a bonafide record of the Seminar presented by YALAMANCHILI RAJESH (Roll
No.: M140250ME), in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree
of Master of Technology in Machine Design from National Institute of Technology
Calicut.

Faculty-in-charge
(ME6612 Material selection in
mechanical design)
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

Professor & Head

Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Place : NIT Calicut
Date : 25 April 2015

ABSTRACT
The objective of this study is to select a suitable materials for leaf springs used in
vehicle suspension system. Leaf springs are crucial elements in automobile, necessary to
minimize the vertical vibrations, impacts and bumps due to road irregularities. In this
study first we derived the suitable materials for leaf springs. It is found that medium
carbon steels are suitable material for leaf springs as to increase strain energy.
In these days reducing vehicle's weight has been in practice in order to economize
energy. So we selected a material for light weight leaf spring by using CES software. It is
found that GFRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer) meeting the requirement of
minimizing the mass compare to conventional steel leaf springs.

CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations

ii

List of Symbols

iii

List of Figures

iv

List of Tables

Introduction

1.1

Introduction

1.2

Problem Definition

1.3

Outline of report

Material Selection for Leaf Spring

2.1

Material Performance Index for Leaf Spring

2.2

Limit selection using CES Software

Alternate Material for Leaf Springs

3.1

Material Performance Index

3.2

Limit selection using CES Software

Results and Discussion

10

5.1

Results

10

5.2

Analysis

10

Conclusions

11

References

12

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CES

Cambridge Educational Software

CFRP

Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer

GFRP

Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer

LIST OF SYMBOLS

Deflection of the spring

Mass of the spring

Modulus of elasticity

Strength

Density

Strain Energy

Length of the leaf spring

Width of the leaf spring

Thickness of the leaf spring

LIST OF FIGURES
2.1

Youngs modulus vs Strength Ashby chart

2.2

Fatigue strength/young modulus against density

3.1

Leaf spring

3.2

Specific Modulus vs Specific Strength

3.3

Fatigue strength vs Density

3.4

Fracture toughness vs Price

LIST OF TABLES
2.1

Candidate materials for leaf spring

3.1

Requirement Translation table

3.2

Candidate Materials for light leaf spring

CHAPTER 1
MATERIAL SELECTION FOR LEAF SPRING
1.1

INTRODUCTION
Leaf springs are crucial suspension elements in automobile, necessary to

minimize the vertical vibrations, impacts and bumps due to road irregularities. The
functions of the suspension springs for an automobile are to maintain a good control
stability and to improve riding comfort.
When a vehicle rides over rough grounds, the wheels will rise when rolling over
bump and will deflect the springs. The energy created due to this movement is
momentarily stored in the spring; it is then release again, due to the elasticity of the
spring material, and in expending this energy the spring will rebound.
1.2

PROBLEM DEFINITION
Leaf spring should have an ability to absorb the energy when vehicle is moving

on rough road or bumps. We have to select a suitable material for this purpose. In
addition to that we have to minimize the mass of the spring in order to economize energy.
1.3

OUTLINE OF THE REPORT

The first objective of the present study is to select a material for the leaf spring

which can store more elastic energy. After that minimizing the mass of the spring is our
main objective. In addition to that it should be cost effective. In this paper we used CES
software to do the limit selection of materials from candidate materials.

CHAPTER 2
MATERIAL SELECTION FOR LEAF SPRING

2.1

MATERIAL PERFORMANCE INDEX FOR LEAF SPRING

The primary function of a spring is that of storing elastic energy and releasing it

again when required. The elastic energy stored per unit volume in a block of material
stressed uniformly to a stress is:

Where E is the Young's modulus. It is this that we wish to maximize. The spring will be
damaged if the stress exceeds the yield stress or failure stress f. So the constraint is
f. The maximum energy density is therefore:

For leaf springs loaded in pure bending the maximum energy storage is

The best material for springs, regardless of the way in which they are loaded, is that with
the biggest value of

2.2

LIMIT SELECTION USING CES SOFTWARE

Fig.2.1. Youngs modulus vs Strength Ashby chart

Based on the material index M1 the candidate materials selected by using Ashby
chart is listed below:

Table.2.1. Candidate Materials for Leaf Spring

A limit selection was conducted base on materials with high fatigue strength,
high fracture toughness and high yield strength. Under this constrain, the CES software
eliminated 98 materials and the possible materials for leaf spring were found to be:

o High carbon steel

o Medium carbon steel
o Low carbon steel
o Nickel
o Nickel base super alloys
o Stainless steel
o Tungsten alloy

Fig.2.2. fatigue strength/young modulus against density.

Comparison of fatigue strength/young modulus against density and fracture
toughness/ density against price was further investigated and it is found out to be medium
carbon steel is best suitable material for automotive leaf spring.

CHAPTER 3
ALTERNATE MATERIAL FOR LEAF SPRING
3.1

MATERIAL PERFORMANCE INDEX

In vehicle suspension design it is desirable to minimize the mass of all

components. Here we are going to select a material which minimizes the mass of the leaf
springs. Consider that the existing leaf spring is a beam as shown in Fig.3.1.

Fig.3.1. Leaf spring

The following tables will gives the requirement for minimizing the mass of leaf spring

Table.3.1. Requirements translation table

10

The objective function is to minimize the mass of the spring m is given by:

Stiffness of the leaf spring is given by

Maximum allowable deflection is given by

By substituting for b and t in mass equation then

The material performance index is given by

Materials selection for light leaf springs is shown in Fig.3.2. This Ashby chart gives us
the candidate materials for light leaf spring. The candidate materials are listed in
Table3.2.

11

Fig.3.2. Specific modulus vs Specific strength

Table.3.2. candidate materials for light leaf spring

12

3.2

LIMIT SELECTION USING CES SOFTWARE

The leaf spring flexes through thousands of compression and expansion cycles without
breaking and still retains their original shape. So it should have enough fatigue strength.
In selecting a suitable advance material that will be of light weight, cost effective and
better service efficiency, selection was performed using the CES EduPack 2011 software
using the following parameters: Density-100 kg/m^3, Young Modulus=20Gpa, Fatigue
strength=70Mpa, Fracture toughness=15Mpa.m^ 0.5 and Yield strength=50Mpa. The
materials selected among these are

o GFRP, epoxy matrix (isotropic)

o CFRP, epoxy matrix (isotropic)
o Cast magnesium alloy
o Aluminum/silicon carbide composite

Fig.3.3. Fatigue strength vs Density

13

Fig.3.4. Fracture toughness vs Price

From the investigation conducted, GFRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer) were
found to be the best suitable advanced material for the automotive leaf spring maintaining
good advantage over others.

14

CHAPTER 5
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1

RESULTS
We have found out the materials for leaf spring which can store the maximum

elastic strain energy. Finally we found out that medium carbon steel is suitable material
for the leaf spring by taking into consideration of fatigue strength and fracture toughness.
For minimizing the mass of the leaf spring we found out that GFRP is best
suitable material among all materials by CES limit selection.

5.2

ANALYSIS
We have selected GFRP as best suitable alternating material for minimizing the

mass of the leaf spring. Low E- modulus approximately to be 7-times lower in

comparison with the steel, together with internal damping and low dynamic stiffness in
comparison with static stiffness, makes GFRP composite suitable for the manufacturing
of road friendly leaf spring and suspension.
Low specific weight- it has been augured that a 60% reduction of the whole
suspension weight can be obtained by replacing steel spring with GFRP springs with the
same functions. This is particularly important because springs represent unstrung mass. It
has excellent fatigue resistance. It is also free from corrosion.

15

CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSIONS
The movement from the normal conventional material for leaf spring to the
development of an alternative composite leaf spring having constant cross sectional area,
where the stress level at any station in the leaf spring is considered constant due to the
parabolic type of the thickness of the spring, has proved to be very effective. The
research demonstrated that composites can be used for leaf springs for light weight
vehicles and meet the requirements, together with substantial weight savings. The
selection decision of both steel and composite leaf spring is done and analyzed using
Cambridge educational software CES EduPark 2013. A comparative study has been made
between composite and steel leaf spring with respect to weight, cost and strength. From
the results, it is observed that the composite leaf spring is lighter and more economical
than the conventional steel spring with similar design specifications. Composite leaf
spring reduces the weight by 85 % for E-Glass/Epoxy, over conventional leaf spring.

16

REFERENCES
[1]

AL Qureshi., H. A (2001) Automotive Leaf Spring from Composite Material.

Journal of Materials Processing Technology Vol.118 pp 56-61[
[2] Stephen.A.Takim, Performance Characteristics and Evaluation of Alternate
Materials for Automobile Advanced Leaf Springs Volume 11, Issue 4 Ver. IV
[3] Michael F. Ashby, Third Edition, Material Selection in Mechanical Design.

17