CASE STUDY 1377

Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of

automotive coil springs for McPherson front
suspensions: a case study
R Bartolozzi and F Frendo*
Department of Mechanical, Nuclear and Production Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

The manuscript was received on 3 May 2010 and was accepted after revision for publication on 23 February 2011.

DOI: 10.1177/0954407011403853

Abstract: The current paper deals with the elastic and stress analysis of a side-load spring,
which is employed in cars belonging to the medium segment of the European automotive
market. In the design of this kind of spring both the elastic characteristics and the fatigue
strength have to be considered as significant aspects. Side-load springs, indeed, have a thrust
axis which results in skew with respect to the damper axis; for this reason they are widely
employed in front McPherson automotive suspensions in order to minimize the side force
acting on the strut damper, which is responsible for the undesired damper-sticking phenome-
non. In addition to this particular elastic property, as a consequence of the research effort in
reducing the mass of components typical of the automotive industry, these springs have to
face very high working stresses. The structural reliability of the spring must therefore be
ensured by high residual stresses, which are induced by presetting and shot peening treat-
ment at the end of the manufacturing process.
The evolution of the thrust axis during suspension travel was analysed by a finite element
(FE) model of the spring–seats assembly, built starting from a three-dimensional (3D) scan of
the spring. In addition an experimental campaign was planned in order to measure the resid-
ual stresses at several points along the spring by X-ray diffraction. The actual stresses were
then obtained as the superposition of those produced by the external loads, computed by
means of the FE model, and the measured residual stresses. The beneficial effect of residual
stresses on the structural reliability is discussed with a theoretical fatigue analysis on the
basis of different multiaxial criteria. A mechanism of residual stress generation, based on the
superposition of stresses coming from presetting and shot peening, is also suggested with
the aid of FE simulations.

Keywords: McPherson suspension, coil spring, thrust axis, residual stresses, fatigue strength

1 INTRODUCTION As happens for many other automotive subsys-

In this work some aspects of the design of coil springs
specifically employed in McPherson suspensions
(Fig. 1) are discussed; the McPherson suspension is
one of the most widely employed front suspension
architectures in the automotive industry [1].
*Corresponding author: Department of Mechanical, Nuclear
and Production Engineering, University of Pisa, Largo Lucio
Lazzarino, 56122 Pisa, Italy.
email: frendo@ing.unipi.it
tems, a well-balanced design of the suspension has
to fulfil several design objectives in terms of com-
fort (good filtering of road inputs), elastic and kine-
matic properties (suspension rate, desired toe, and
camber alteration), has to resist different load con-
ditions for a given life, and has to face layout con-
straints. It is also worth noting that, in addition to
the general request of lowering the costs, nowadays
there is a common research effort aimed at reduc-
ing the mass of components, which is also enforced
by recent standards and regulations promoted by

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1378
Fig. 1 Front McPherson suspension (a) and side-load
spring (b)
environment protection priorities. For structural
components in general, and then also for suspension
springs, this means high working stresses, which, in
turn, require the use of high-strength materials and
accurate design methodologies; sometimes, the use
of poor materials or materials containing defects
may indeed lead to early failure of the components
[2, 3]. Usually, at the end of the manufacturing pro-
cess, springs are subjected to shot peening and pre-
setting in order to induce favourable residual
stresses.
In the technical literature about the design of sus-
pension springs, there are some papers that focus
mainly on the fatigue strength, such as references [4]
and [5]. Del Llano-Vizcaya et al. [4] presented
a finite element (FE) analysis of a compression
spring and discussed the results provided by some
multiaxial fatigue criteria. Failure analyses of real
springs were also carried out and the results com-
pared with those of FE simulations, without taking
into account the residual stresses. FE analyses of
stresses due to external loads, and residual stresses,
due to shot peening, with reference to a suspension
spring, were presented by Bae et al. [5]. In their
paper some consideration on the fatigue strength
was also included; however, the residual stresses due
to presetting, which (as will be shown herein) give
an important contribution to the overall residual
stress state, were not considered.
Other papers are found in the literature that
focus specifically on residual stresses [6–9]; it turns
out that, in general, it is difficult to foresee the
residual stress levels, since they are strictly related
to the materials and manufacturing process
employed. Analyses of residual stresses due to shot
peening and their favourable effects on the fatigue
strength were presented by Li et al. [6] and Farrahi
et al. [7]. Todinov [8] measured the axial residual
stresses in spring wire specimens experimentally at
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R Bartolozzi and F Frendo
various stages of the spring manufacture: quench-
ing (in water and oil), tempering, and shot peening.
It was shown how tensile (unfavourable) stresses on
the spring surface, which can occur in manu-
facturing, are reduced by the heat treatments and
can be turned into favourable compressive residual
stresses if shot peening is carried out correctly.
Experimental measurements of residual stresses in
a suspension spring subjected to presetting, but
not to shot peening, were presented by Matejicek
et al. [9]. Measurements were carried out after
manufacturing (cold-coiling), then after annealing,
and finally after presetting, showing the effect of
the heat treatment in reducing the residual stresses
due to manufacturing and the small influence of
the presetting on the normal residual stresses. In
the measurements only the normal stresses acting
along predefined directions were obtained and no
information was given about the shear stress
components.
To the authors’ knowledge there are no papers
about measurements of the residual stresses in
a real component (suspension spring), subjected to
both presetting and shot peening.
The presented paper summarizes a study that was
carried out at the Department of Mechanical, Nuclear
and Production Engineering of the University of Pisa
(Italy), in the framework of a co-operation with
Magneti Marelli Suspension Systems (Italy), with the
aim of developing a design procedure for ‘side-load’
springs; both elastic and stress analyses are discussed
in the following.
In the first part of the paper (section 3) the elastic
behaviour of the coil spring is analysed, on the basis
of detailed FE simulations. In the second part
a stress analysis is presented (section 4), in which
both the stresses coming from the operating condi-
tions and the residual stresses coming from the
manufacturing process are determined by FE simula-
tions and experimental measurements, respectively.
From the engineer’s point of view, one of the
main difficulties related to the design of this kind of
spring is that, generally, no drawing or computer-
aided design (CAD) model of the final geometry is
available. This is due to the fact that the spring is
formed by plastic deformation and then it is gener-
ally subjected to presetting; both processes involve
permanent deformation and elastic spring-back
phenomena which are difficult to be predicted
accurately. Then, the only way to achieve a precise
geometry of the spring is by reverse engineering
(three-dimensional (3D) scanning) of a real spring.
It is also worth noting that springs, developed for
this particular suspension, have a complex geome-
try aimed at improving ride comfort; indeed, the
 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1379

strut damper being subjected to bending, friction Table 1 Geometrical data of the side-load spring
forces act between the external tube and the sliding
Parameter Symbol Value
piston, causing the well known and undesired
‘damper-sticking’ phenomenon, which is detrimental Wire diameter d 12.8 mm
External maximum diameter De 155 mm
for comfort. Thus peculiar springs have been devel- Lower end external diameter – 80 mm
oped, named ‘side-load springs’, having a variable Upper end external diameter – 109 mm
coil radius and a curvilinear axis in the unloaded Active coils – 4.35
Total coils N 5.5
configuration; thanks to this geometry, the thrust Unloaded spring length* – 377 mm
axis (the axis determined by the elastic reaction of
*The unloaded spring length has been defined as the distance
the spring) does not pass through the centres of the
between the seat centres.
retain seats. This means that, together with the main
elastic reaction component, directed as the straight
line passing through the seats’ centres, there is
a side force, orthogonal to it, which is aimed at
reducing the bending of the strut damper [10–14].
The side load compensation is generally looked for,
with reference to the static configuration, under the
nominal load, i.e. for the most frequent loading con-
dition, when the maximum comfort performance is
generally expected. Obviously, it is desirable to know
the complete elastic characteristic of the spring in
the whole operating range.
In this work a 3D CAD model was obtained with
reference to a commercially available spring by
a reverse engineering procedure. The model was
used to develop a detailed 3D FE model, made of
solid elements. The FE model was then employed
for the elastic and stress analyses.
For the elastic analysis the evolution of the thrust
axis during suspension travel is presented. With
regard to the stress analysis, the FE model was used Fig. 2 Complete CAD (a) and FE (b) model of the side-
load spring and retaining seats. The vertical axis
to obtain the elastic stresses in the spring; it is shown represents the damper axis; the employed coor-
how, due to the spring geometry, the actual stresses dinate system is also shown
differ from those that can be easily evaluated by
simple spring theory, which is commonly found in
textbooks. considered in this work. The main geometric para-
In addition, an experimental campaign was carried meters of the spring are given in Table 1. Because of
out in order to measure the residual stresses at differ- the complex shape, these parameters do not define
ent positions along the spring by the X-ray diffraction completely the geometry of such a spring; thus, a pre-
(XRD) method [15]. It is shown that high residual cise representation of the spring shape was obtained
stresses are obtained in the spring, whose generation by a reverse engineering procedure. The spring was
mechanism can be explained by the superposition of scanned and a 3D CAD model was built by fitting the
the residual stresses due to torsion and those gener- acquired cloud of points. The CAD model is shown in
ated by an equibiaxial compressive stress. Fig. 2 together with the employed coordinate system;
Based on the FE results (elastic stresses) and the this system is fixed with respect to the lower seat, the
experimentally measured residual stresses, a theoreti- z-axis is coincident with the axis of the damper of
cal fatigue analysis is also discussed in the final part the suspension (passing through the seats’ centres),
of the paper (section 4.3), on the basis of some fatigue the x-axis lies on a side plane of the vehicle, and the
criteria suitable for non-proportional loading [16–18]. y-axis has been defined following the right-hand rule.
Material properties for this spring are given in
Table 2; the yield stress was estimated starting from
2 SPRING NUMERICAL MODEL the ultimate stress as 1.05Su 2 207 MPa, following
reference [16].
A side-load spring employed in a front McPherson In order to perform elastic analyses and to com-
strut of a commercial Italian compact car was pute both load values (modulus and unit direction

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1380 R Bartolozzi and F Frendo
Table 2 Material data of 55SiCr6 (UNI)
Parameter Symbol Value
Density r 7850 kg/m3
Elastic modulus E 206 GPa
Tangential modulus G 78.5 GPa
Ultimate strength Su 1900 MPa
Estimated yield strength Sy 1788 MPa
vector) and elastic stresses during the load cycle,
a complete FE model of the spring and seats was
developed and contact conditions between spring
and seats were included. A node-to-surface contact
model was adopted, in which each node of the end
surface of the spring coil has the possibility of slid-
ing with respect to the seat. Considering that a thin
rubber disc is inserted between the upper surface of
the seat and the spring in the actual configuration,
a friction coefficient of 0.8 was assumed, corre-
sponding to a steel-to-rubber contact.
The seats were modelled as rigid bodies; this
assumption was justified because the retaining seats
are much stiffer than the side-load spring. Some
preliminary FE analyses showed that more accurate
seat models had slight influence on the local con-
tact conditions and a negligible influence on the
macroscopic spring behaviour (i.e. axial and side-
load force, thrust axis orientation, and stress values
outside the contact region). In addition, simplifica-
tions on the seats’ geometry were done in order to
reduce the model complexity; all geometric features
other than the contact surface were removed.
The volume of the side-load spring was meshed
with tetrahedral elements with ten nodes (i.e. qua-
dratic shape function). The total number of ele-
ments was about 66 000, with a medium size of
about 3 mm.
The FE simulations were carried out imposing
a vertical displacement (i.e. along the damper axis) to
the lower seat, constraining all other displacements
of both seats; 34 load steps were defined in the full
suspension operating range, between the configura-
tions of maximum compression and maximum
rebound. Before this, some simulation steps were
performed in order to initialize the contact between
the spring and the seats and hence to obtain the ini-
tial configuration of the system. In these steps the
spring was first fully constrained in three nodes while
both seats were moved towards each other; after
that, the constraints were removed to relax the spring
in the new deformed configuration.
The reaction forces and moments acting on both
retaining seats, as obtained by the FE analysis, were
used to compute the elastic characteristics as
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Table 3 Comparison of computed spring stiffness
between the simplified analytical model and
the FE model
Spring stiffness (N/mm)
FE simulation Analytical model Relative error (%)
20.60 21.06 2.2
explained in section 3. On the other hand, the
elastic stress tensors at the spring nodes were
employed for the fatigue strength analysis as
described in section 4.
3 SPRING ELASTIC CHARACTERISTICS
In suspension spring design, the elastic characteris-
tic of the spring represents the main objective and
it is therefore fundamental to have models able to
predict it with a high accuracy. With reference to
side-load springs, this means knowing precisely the
axial force and the side-load force for any given
spring length. The thrust axis direction, which
depends on those two quantities, is a useful way to
represent the elastic reaction of the spring and is
discussed henceforward.
Starting from FE analyses, the reactions at the
seats’ constraints were taken in order to evaluate all
load components exchanged between the spring
and each seat; of course, for the equilibrium of the
whole spring to be verified, equal and opposite
loads were found on the upper and lower seats.
Table 3 compares the spring stiffness as obtained
by the FE model with the stiffness that can be com-
puted by the classical simple spring model (e.g. see
reference [16]) using the diameters d and De and
the number of coils N defined in Table 1.
As can be observed, for the case studied, the sim-
plified analytical model can predict the spring stiff-
ness with reasonable accuracy, giving an error of
about 2.2 per cent. However, it cannot give informa-
tion about the side-load force and the thrust axis
orientation for which the FE analysis is mandatory.
The axial (along z, Fig. 2) and side-load (along x,
Fig. 2) forces at different spring length values, as
obtained with the FE model, are shown in Fig. 3.
Both forces are observed to be linearly related to
spring length. It is also important to highlight how
the side-load force is about 20 per cent of the axial
force; this is due to both the particular spring
geometry and the shape and relative orientation of
the seats; the influence of seat orientation has been
discussed in another paper by the authors, with ref-
erence to a different side-load spring [14].
 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1381

Axial force Side-load force

6000 1100

5500
1000

5000
900
Force (N)

4500

Force (N)
800
4000

700
3500

600
3000

2500 500
50 100 150 200 250 50 100 150 200 250
Spring length (mm) Spring length (mm)

Fig. 3 Axial and side-load force of the side-load spring

Starting from FE analyses, the thrust axis evolu-
tion during spring compression can be evaluated as
follows. The thrust axis represents the central axis
of the contact forces exchanged between spring and
seats. At each load step the resultant force and
moment, evaluated with respect to the global refer-
ence system, of the contact forces are obtained.
On the basis of such data, the following equa-
tions hold for the central axis [10, 14]
R
r = rA + l
jR j
and
R3M
rA =
RR
where r is a vector indicating a generic point of the
thrust axis, R is the current reaction force on
a spring seat, M is the current reaction moment on
the same seat, l is a parameter indicating a linear
coordinate along the thrust axis, and rA represents
the position of a known point belonging to the
thrust axis.
The parameter l can be expressed as a function
of the component rz of the vector r by the following
relationship, simply obtained by considering the
third component of equation (1)
jRj
l = ðrz  rA z Þ
Rz
By using equations (1) and (3) the following
expressions can be obtained
Rx
rx = rA x + ðrz  rA z Þ (4)
Rz
and
Ry
ry = rA y + ðrz  rA z Þ (5)
Rz
(1)
Then the coordinates of the intersection of the
thrust axis with the planes representing the contact
surface between the spring and the retaining seats
are given by equations (4) and (5), by simply
substituting the appropriate rz component of the
(2)
seats.
In the analysed case the intersection points with
the seats move mainly along the x coordinate,
whereas a small movement takes place along the y
coordinate (Fig. 4). When the spring is in the fully
rebounded position the thrust axis is 12.45° skew
with respect to the damper axis (on the x–z plane).
During spring compression, its intersection points
with the seats move against each other but, due to
the fact that the spring length also reduces, this
generally leads to just a slight reduction of the angle
between the thrust axis and the damper axis. In this
case, at fully compressed suspension, this angle is
10.60°. The analysed spring tends therefore to be
(3) more similar to a conventional spring as it com-
presses; this is a consequence of the fact that the

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1382 R Bartolozzi and F Frendo

Lower seat - thrust axis intersection Upper seat - thrust axis intersection
-20 10

-25
5
X coordinate (mm)

X coordinate (mm)
-30

-35 0

-40
-5
-45

-50 -10
50 100 150 200 250 50 100 150 200 250
Spring length (mm) Spring length (mm)

Lower seat - thrust axis intersection Upper seat - thrust axis intersection
6 2

5 1
Y coordinate (mm)

Y coordinate (mm)

4 0

3 -1

2 -2

1 -3

0 -4
50 100 150 200 250 50 100 150 200 250
Spring length (mm) Spring length (mm)

Fig. 4 Coordinates of the intersection point between the thrust axis and the retaining seats

geometry of the spring is more like cylindrical when fully compressed positions; the stresses related
it compresses. to the reference static configuration were also
evaluated.

4 STRESS ANALYSIS
4.1 Elastic stress
Beside elastic analysis, which represents the main The von Mises equivalent stresses due to external
objective of spring design, strength analysis is loads, as computed with the FE model, are shown
another fundamental topic to be considered. In in Fig. 5 for the three considered conditions: full
fact, springs are designed to work at very high stress rebound, static load, and full compression. As
levels and it should be therefore recommended to expected, the maximum von Mises stress is at the
perform accurate analyses, considering both the inner side of the lower coils, those which are further
elastic stresses produced by the external loads and from the thrust axis and are therefore subjected to
the residual stresses. a higher moment. It should be also noticed how the
In the analysed case, the elastic stress due to elastic stress is very high at maximum compression
external loads were obtained by the FE model and, probably, if there were no residual stress, the
described in section 2, whereas the residual stresses spring would be subjected to plasticity or even
were measured experimentally on the surface layers static failure.
by the XRD method. The actual stresses in the Table 4 compares the stresses obtained by the FE
spring were then obtained by summing the previous simulation with those computed by the simple
contributions. beam model subjected to torsion, i.e. by the follow-
The reference load cycle of the spring, as consid- ing relationship (taken from reference [16]), as
ered by the manufacturer, is composed of 105 a function of the applied load F, the external spring
cycles defined between the fully rebounded and diameter De, and the wire diameter d

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 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1383

Fig. 5 Von Mises stress in fully rebounded (a), static load (b), and fully compressed (c)
conditions

Table 4 Comparison between von Mises equivalent 4C  1 0:615

KW = +
stress obtained by the FE model the simplified 4C  4 C
analytical model
and
Position Maximum equivalent Relative
stress (MPa) error (%)
FE Analytical
De
C=
simulation model d
Maximum rebound 1181 868 226.5
Static load 1734 1409 218.7 In equation (6) the coefficient KW, known as
Maximum compression 2320 1942 216.3 Wahl coefficient, takes into account the curvature
and shear load effects.
It is interesting to observe that, for the consid-
ered spring, the simple analytical model leads to an
8FDe error which goes from 16 to 26 per cent in comput-
t max = KW
pd 3 (6) ing maximum stresses; according to the thrust axis
evolution (discussed in section 3), the error reduces
with as the spring compression increases, due to the fact

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1384
Fig. 6 Selection of measurement points
that the spring behaves more like a cylindrical
spring. However, the observed error is not accept-
able, especially because it underestimates the
actual stress state; the error in estimating the stress
is due mainly to the location and orientation of the
thrust axis in the analytical model.
4.2 Residual stresses measurement and
interpretation
Considering the high elastic stresses which come
from external loads, it has to be concluded that
residual stresses play a determinant role for spring
life. Residual stresses were measured in different
positions along the spring coils; by this way, indeed,
it has been possible to get indications about the
variability of residual stresses along the spring sur-
face and, contemporarily, to achieve indications
Fig. 7 XRD measurement equipment with a semi-coil of the side-load spring; the reference
system is represented in (b)
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R Bartolozzi and F Frendo
about the stress level typical of the employed peen-
ing treatment.
The XRD method was used to carry out the mea-
surements and the ‘Sin2’ method was employed for
data analysis (e.g. see reference [15]).
In order to be able to perform the measurements,
it was necessary to cut the spring into segments.
Therefore, some relevant points of interest along
the spring coils were first selected; then the spring
was cut, far away from these points, thus avoiding
any relaxation of residual stress (Fig. 6). It was
chosen to take measurements at the inner side of
the spring coils with an angular step of 180°, so that
the measurement points were located in the x–z
plane of the reference system defined in Fig. 2. The
spring was cut into 11 half coils, ten of which were
employed for the XRD measurements; the half coil
which is in contact with one of the seats was not
considered for this aim. Because of the thrust axis
position and spring geometry, the selected points
are those where the elastic stress reaches its maxi-
mum value (see section 2) and are therefore the
most significant for the strength analysis. Some
additional measurements were also carried out in
the proximity of the measurement points in order
to verify the repeatability and the accuracy of the
method. Figure 7 shows the experimental arrange-
ment during one of the measurements.
In order to analyse the experimental results
a local coordinate system was defined in
 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1385

500

+
22 22 22 22
0 11 11 11 11
Stress (MPa)

-500 Final
Preseng Shot-peening

Fig. 9 Schematic representation of residual stress in

-1000
the spring coil surface due to presetting and
shot peening
-1500
0.25 0.75 1.25 1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.25 4.75
Measurement point (spring coil)
(a) a terminal coil, all other measures furnished a prin-
90
cipal stress which is almost zero and a relatively
80
high compression stress of about 1150 MPa. The
70
apparently different result obtained for the first
60
Angle (deg)

measurement point was attributed to the high per-

50
40
30
20
10
0 tion of the principal stresses and stress components
0.25 0.75 1.25 1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.25 4.75
Measurement point (spring coil)
(b)
Fig. 8 (a) Residual principal stresses along the spring;
(b) angle of the principal directions with
respect to the wire axis. Coils are numbered
from the lower end of the spring
Table 5 Average value and standard deviation (SD) of
principal stresses, sp1, sp2; of stress compo-
nents in the wire local coordinate system,
s11, s22, t 12; and of the angle of the principal
directions, a
sp1 (MPa) sp2 (MPa) s11 (MPa) s22 (MPa) t12 (MPa) a (°)
Mean 258 21142 2587 2613 2523
SD 97 170 236 86 104
correspondence to the measurement points, in
which the residual stress components are repre-
sented. As can be observed in Fig. 7(b), axes 11 and
22 lie on the surface of the spring whereas axis 3 is
normal to it; axis 11 is parallel to the local tangent
to the wire axis, while axis 22 is oriented down-
wards with reference to Fig. 2.
Figure 8 gives the principal stresses along the
spring and the angle between the principal direc-
tions and the wire axis. In order to analyse data,
each measurement point was identified by a real
number, which represents its position in number of
coils, starting from the lower end of the spring.
As can be seen from Fig. 8, with the exception of
the first measurement point, corresponding to
manent deformation caused by the manufacturing
process in correspondence of that coil, which
indeed has a strong variation in geometry.
Table 5 gives the mean value and standard devia-
computed in the local coordinate system, obtained
with points ranging from 0.75 to 4.75 (for a total of
nine measurement points, see Fig. 8). The angle of
the principal directions is about 45° which means
that, along the wire’s local coordinate system, there
is almost the same value of compression stress along
directions 11 and 22 together with a shear stress
opposite to those due to external loads. It should be
also noticed that data dispersion of the residual
stress measurements appeared not to be negligible;
this was attributed to the spring manufacturing pro-
cess, to the presetting and shot peening processes,
and also to measurement errors.
The experimental results suggested a possible
interpretation: the observed residual stresses can be
obtained as a combination of a pure shear (residual)
43
8 stress state and an equibiaxial (residual) compres-
sion stress state. The former is typical of a torsional
load and can be attributed to the presetting and the
forming process; the latter is the typical stress state
due to the shot peening and can be attributed
mainly to this process.
The previous interpretation of the residual stress
generation on the surface of the spring coils is repre-
sented in Fig. 9. Presetting induces a pure shear
stress state which is represented in the wire local
coordinate system and which gives equal and oppo-
site principal stresses (compression in one direction
and traction in the other) that are at 45° from the
wire coordinate system. The shot peening process
itself would induce an equibiaxial (compression)
stress state which, summed to the stress state due to
the presetting, leads to a high compression stress in
one direction and an almost null stress in the other

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1386
principal direction. The principal directions remain
at about 45° with respect to the wire axis.
In order to confirm this interpretation an FE
analysis was carried out in which these treatments,
i.e. presetting and shot peening, were simulated.
The aim was to qualitatively represent the phenom-
ena inducing the same load state (i.e. pure shear
and an isotropic stress state) and therefore loads
were just estimated. The FE model, which is shown
in Fig. 10(a), represents one-eighth of the spring
coil; it is made up of three main meshed regions,
two coarser regions and a central fine region, which
will be used to discuss the results.
The model is made up of about 70 000 solid tetra-
hedral elements with ten nodes (quadratic shape
function) and was fully constrained at one end. The
material model employed for simulation is bilinear
with isotropic hardening; the material parameters
are given in Table 6.
This kind of spring is actually subjected to a first
presetting, then to shot peening, and finally to
a second complete compression (similar to presetting)
which is made for settlement of the spring. Six load
steps were therefore defined in the FE model to repro-
duce this load history. Some preliminary FE analyses
were conducted in order to estimate loads to be
applied in the FE model, which gave results in reason-
able agreement with the measured residual stresses.
In the first step, torsion and shear loads at the
free end of the spring coil were applied. These loads
represent an axial compression force on the spring
of 8500 N, which is about 35 per cent greater than
the maximum compression load of the finished
spring. The 35 per cent additional load should take
into account the fact that the unloaded spring
length is greater than the actual before presetting; it
should also include in some manner the stresses
due to the forming process. In the second load step
the external load was removed and residual stress
appeared. Then, the spring skin (about 0.65 mm
depth from the external surface) was subjected to
a thermal load which leads to an equibiaxial stress
state, representing the shot peening process. The
thermal load was then removed in the fourth load
step. In the fifth step, the second presetting treat-
ment was simulated exactly like the first one, with
a lower axial load (8300 N) because the spring was
already preset; this load is about 27 per cent greater
than the maximum compression load of the fin-
ished spring. The increments of these presetting
loads, with respect to the maximum compression
load of the finished spring, were considered realistic
for a qualitative representation of these treatments.
Finally, in the sixth load step, the second presetting
load was removed.
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R Bartolozzi and F Frendo
The residual stresses obtained at the nodes on the
inner side of the coil (same location as the measure-
ment points) are shown in Table 7 and Figs 10(b)
to (d), where the whole cross-section of the wire is
represented. Even if data about loads, both torsion
and thermal load, were roughly estimated, the results
of the FE analysis confirmed the qualitative interpre-
tation of the residual stress generation mechanism.
The residual stresses due to the torsional load
(presetting and forming) have a relatively small influ-
ence on the equibiaxial compression residual stress
state due to the thermal load (shot peening) and
vice versa.
4.3 Fatigue analysis
The residual stress measurements are finally con-
sidered for discussing their importance on the
fatigue strength. This section presents a fatigue
analysis; the analysis is purely theoretical and addi-
tional experimental work is required in order to
validate the numerical results.
4.3.1 Actual spring stress
As the spring material is in the elastic range during
the load cycle, the stress tensor due to residual
stresses can be added to that due to external loads;
stresses due to external loads were computed with
the reference load cycle and model already des-
cribed in section 4.1.
In order to sum the two stress tensors it was nec-
essary to evaluate the stress components given by
the FE analysis in the local reference frame used for
the experimental measurements. To achieve this
aim it was assumed that, considering the spring as
a curved beam, the non-zero stress components
(due to external load) acting in the coil cross-
section are s11 and t 12. The stresses so obtained,
evaluated in the local coil reference frame defined
in Fig. 7, are given in Table 8 with reference to the
fully rebounded and fully compressed conditions.
Considering normal stress components, it can be
noticed that the external load affects the s11 com-
ponent, whereas s22 remains unchanged since, as
previously explained, this is due only to residual
stress.
It can be also noticed how the influence of
residual stress is fundamental for the strength of
the side-load spring; indeed, it is evident how
resultant stresses at maximum compression are
significantly lower than the elastic stress evaluated
by the FE analysis, which were previously shown
in Fig. 5 and Table 4 in terms of von Mises equiva-
lent stresses.
 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1387

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 10 FE model for studying the residual stresses (a) and results of the analysis: s11 (b), s11 (c),
and t 12 (d)

Table 2), following a typical procedure (see e.g. ref-

Table 6 Material properties for spring coil in the FE model
erence [16]). The material fatigue limit in fully
Property Value reversed bending (R = 21), with 50 per cent proba-
Yield stress 1788 MPa
bility of failure, was computed as
Elastic modulus 206 GPa
Tangent modulus 2.06 GPa Su
Sn = Cl Cs Cg = 428MPa
2

where Cl is the load coefficient (Cl = 1 for normal

With reference to fatigue analysis, in particular
for the selection of fatigue criteria to be applied, it
is important to notice that the load cycle is non-
proportional; this is due to effects of both residual
stress and large displacements.
4.3.2 Material fatigue strength
Fatigue strength data for the material were esti-
mated starting from the ultimate strength Su (see
stress), Cs is the surface condition coefficient (con-
sidering the material strength and forming process,
it was assumed Cs = 0.5), and Cg is the gradient coef-
ficient (considering the spring wire diameter, it was
assumed Cg = 0.9).
The fatigue analysis was carried out with refer-
ence to 100 000 load cycles and a 90 per cent proba-
bility of failure. The previously computed fatigue
limit Sn was therefore corrected by estimating the
complete fatigue curve (following the method in

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1388 R Bartolozzi and F Frendo
Table 7 Computed residual stress components in the wire local coordinate system
Step s11 (MPa) s22 (MPa) s33 (MPa)
1 0 0 0
2 0 0 0
3 1913 1855 ~0
4 2585 2683 ~0
5 2531 2603 ~0
6 2531 2603 ~0
reference [16]) and introducing the probability
coefficient. In order to estimate the life at 105
cycles, together with the previously evaluated Sn,
which is referred to a conventional life of 106
cycles, it was considered that at 0.9Su the life is 103
cycles [16]. The 90 per cent reliability furnished an
additional coefficient of 0.897. As a final result, the
material fatigue strength (uniaxial stress) of
S#n = 631 MPa was obtained.
4.3.3 Fatigue criteria
In order to carry out the fatigue analysis some
fatigue criteria proposed in the literature were
chosen. Because of the stress conditions and the
high number of load cycles, stress-based multiaxial
criteria were considered the most suitable. Among
these, both criteria based on static strength and cri-
teria based on the critical plane approach given in
reference [17] were considered. In particular, the
latter are considered more accurate for non-
proportional load cycles.
The criteria used in the fatigue analysis are
described briefly in the following. All of them are
expressed with a formula which gives the damage
value, which is 1 (or more) when failure is pre-
dicted.
1. The von Mises–Juvinall fatigue criterion, based
on the von Mises stress and expressed with the
well-known Goodman formula
sa;eq sm;eq
+ =1
Sn# Su
where sa,eq is the von Mises alternate stress
whereas sm,eq is the equivalent mean stress,
obtained as the maximum principal stress. This
criterion is a variant (proposed in reference [16])
of criteria which evaluate equivalent mean stress
with the von Mises formula. This latter criterion
was not used because it does not take into
account the different influence of positive (trac-
tion) and negative (compression) mean stresses.
It should be noticed that according to the von
Mises–Juvinall criterion, a shear mean stress has
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t12 (MPa) t13 (MPa) t23 (MPa)
1143 0 0
2477 0 0
2325 0 0
2325 0 0
1101 0 0
2480 0 0
an influence on fatigue life, whereas it is gener-
ally accepted that this influence is negligible
(e.g. see Sines criterion described in refrence
[17]).
2. A precautionary variant of the previous criterion
was also used; in this variant the influence of
the mean stress is not considered if it improves
fatigue life.
3. The McDiarmid fatigue criterion, a critical
plane-based criterion, in which the critical
plane is determined as the plane were the maxi-
mum shear stress acts. The criterion is given by
the relationship
t a;max sn;max
+ =1
t 2Su
where t a,max is the maximum alternate shear
stress, sn,max is the maximum normal stress
acting during the load cycle on the critical
plane, and t is a parameter indentifying the
material fatigue strength; this parameter was
estimated by using the above equation and the
fatigue strength for 100 000 cycles previously
estimated. The value obtained for t was
393 MPa.
4. The Findley fatigue criterion, another critical
plane-based criterion. In this case the critical
plane is identified by the maximum value of
a combination of alternate shear stress and maxi-
mum normal stress. The criterion formula is
ðt a + ksn Þmax
=1
f
where k is a material constant and f represents
the material fatigue strength. In this case a typical
value of 0.25 was assumed for k, following refer-
ences [17] and [18], whereas f was estimated
from the fatigue strength for 100 000 cycles, as for
the previous criterion; by this way f = 456 MPa
was obtained.
4.3.4 Fatigue analysis
The fatigue criteria listed above were applied to the
case studied. Results, in terms of damage index
 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1389

Table 8 Stress components in coil spring coordinate system (Fig. 7)

Point Stresses in fully rebounded condition (MPa) Stresses in fully compressed condition (MPa)
s11 s22 t12 s11 s22 t12

0.75 2564 2629 212 2621 2629 800

1.25 2398 2746 42 2358 2746 750
1.75 2664 2615 122 2741 2615 710
2.25 2692 2708 234 2620 2708 684
2.75 2937 2546 290 2966 2546 610
3.25 21308 2519 250 21225 2519 617
3.75 2624 2522 283 2675 2522 666
4.25 2616 2687 123 2538 2687 737
4.75 2683 2545 2191 2805 2545 380

Von Mises − Juvinall

1.6 V.M. − J. no mean stress
McDiarmid
Findley
1.4 Von Mises

1.2
Damage value

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2
0.75 1.25 1.75 2.25 2.75 3.25 3.75 4.25 4.75
Measurement point (spring coil)

Fig. 11 Damage values obtained from the various fatigue criteria

along the spring coils, are shown in a single plot for
all the selected criteria in Fig. 11. As can be
observed, even if a somewhat similar trend was
found by employing the different criteria, certain
dispersion was obtained in the total damage; this
means that for an accurate fatigue design of springs
a dedicated experimental campaign should be fore-
seen in order to develop a dedicated design tool.
However, it is interesting to note how the
McDiarmid, which is a critical plane criterion and
the von Mises–Juvinall, which is a strength-based
criterion, gave very close results, with almost coinci-
dent damages evaluated for three of the measure-
ment points. The Findley criterion appeared to
underestimate the damage with respect to previous
criteria and this may be due to the values estimated
for the material parameters f and k. Beside this, the
relative damages obtained for the different points
are much like those obtained with both McDiarmid
and von Mises–Juvinall criteria. As expected, the
variant of the von Mises–Juvinall criterion, in which
compressive mean stresses are not considered,
furnished a higher damage value, which for the
point at 3.75 is greater than 1.
Figure 11 also reports the damage value obtained
by evaluating both the equivalent alternate and the
mean stress by the von Mises formula; as can be
observed, due to the positive sign of the equivalent
mean stress, the damage value is always greater
than 1.
From the previous discussion it follows that the
McDiarmid criterion should be considered as the
most convenient, since it is based on critical plane
(more suitable for non-proportional load cases) and
because it requires the estimation of just one mate-
rial parameter.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The elastic behaviour and the stress analysis of
springs employed in the McPherson front automo-
tive suspension have been presented and discussed
in this paper.

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1390 R Bartolozzi and F Frendo
It was shown how the geometry of the spring and
of the complete assembly of spring and seats is
capable of generating a side-load force which is
about 20 per cent of the main axial load. The results
obtained by a fully 3D FE analysis also highlighted
the poor accuracy that can be provided by the clas-
sical spring model when dealing with these spring
geometries. Relative errors on maximum stress
ranging from 16 to 26 per cent, with reference to the
fully compressed and fully rebounded configura-
tions, respectively, were obtained for the analysed
spring by the use of the simple analytical model
which is found in textbooks.
The stress analysis clearly showed the impor-
tance of residual stresses in fatigue life; this is a con-
sequence of the very high working stresses to which
the spring is subject during normal operation.
The experimentally obtained residual stress along
the spring showed both a high and an almost null
principal stress, with the principal directions at the
inner surface oriented at 45° with respect to the coil
axis. It was also shown, with the aid of some FE
simulations, how the experimental results can be
explained by a simple mechanism of residual stress
generation in which a shear contribution due to
presetting is summed to an equibiaxial contribution
due to the peening treatment.
Finally, the results of the fatigue analysis were
discussed with reference to different standard and
multiaxial fatigue criteria. Even if results appeared
to confirm the experimental evidence, the fatigue
analyses might be affected by some approximation,
essentially due to the fact that some material
parameter requested in a fatigue criterion was not
available and had to be estimated.
Ó Authors 2011
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APPENDIX
Notation
C Wahl curvature factor
Cg gradient coefficient for fatigue strength
computation
 Stiffness and strength aspects in the design of an automotive coil spring for McPherson front suspensions 1391

Cl load coefficient for fatigue strength a angle of the principal directions in the
computation spring wire coordinate system
Cs surface condition coefficient for fatigue l parameter indicating a linear coordinate
strength computation along the thrust axis
d spring wire diameter r material density
De external maximum spring diameter sa,eq equivalent alternate stress
E material elastic modulus sm,eq equivalent mean stress
f material fatigue strength (Findley sn normal stress on the critical plane
criterion) sp1 first principal stress component
F applied load sp2 second principal stress component
G material elastic modulus s11 normal stress along the 11 direction
k material constant (Findley criterion) (spring wire coordinate system)
KW Wahl coefficient s22 normal stress along the 22 direction
M reaction moment vector on a spring seat (spring wire coordinate system)
N total number of spring coils s33 normal stress along the 33 direction
r vector indicating a generic point of the (spring wire coordinate system)
thrust axis ta alternate shear stress (critical plane)
rA position of a known point belonging to t max maximum shear stress
the thrust axis t 12 shear stress along the 12 direction (spring
R reaction force vector on a spring seat wire coordinate system)
Sn material fatigue strength t 13 shear stress along the 13 direction (spring
S#n corrected material fatigue strength wire coordinate system)
Su material ultimate strength t 23 shear stress along the 23 direction (spring
Sy material ultimate strength wire coordinate system)
t material fatigue strength (McDiarmid
criterion)

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