Customer Case Study

Air Spring
Analysis at Firestone
Strong Analysis Workflows Support
FEA Problem Solving with Abaqus
By Pradipta Moulik, Engineering Manager, Core Technology,
Firestone Industrial Products

Firestone Industrial Products Company, based in

Indianapolis, Indiana, is one of the world’s foremost
manufacturers of air suspension technology for
the transportation industry. Since 1938, when we
patented the first rubber air spring, our company has
continued to engineer innovative air spring systems
for automotive, trucking, offroad, and rail applications.

In automobiles, air springs improve ride
and handling by providing a cushion of air
between the wheels and the vehicle frame.
The spring basically consists of an air-
filled rubber cord structure that rolls up and
down over a plastic or steel piston. As the
vehicle travels over the roadway, the spring
undergoes jounce and rebound motion,
absorbing energy from the wheels.
At Firestone, we rely on a sophisticated array
of test equipment and FEA tools to support
the design of new air springs. In a recent
project, our Abaqus simulation software
helped us understand why an automotive air
spring piston failed during prototype testing
after very low fatigue cycles.
To meet our customer requirements,
engineers had made a slight modification to
a prototype air spring piston profile, built a
new prototype, and submitted it for testing.
As Figure 1 shows, the prototype buckled and
cracked. The failure was unexpected, as we
had thoroughly analyzed a prior design that
was very similar, and the stresses were within
the limits. With a cracked prototype in hand,
we had to get to the bottom of the problem.

Figure 1: During development of an automotive
air spring prototype, physical tests showed
deformation after very low fatigue cycles. Note the
cracked piston at right. The material is glass-filled
nylon.
Figure 2: View of the prototype piston design.
Firestone engineers used Abaqus software to
analyze the prototype and determine why it
failed during testing.
Figure 3: The first step in the analysis was to model
the piston in 2D axisymmetric profile. The blue
arrows (left) show where loads were applied to the
2D meshed model. The analysis results (right),
show only minor stress around the top lip of the
piston. Based on the 2D contour plot, it appeared
that the piston would withstand operational loads.

14 INSIGHTS June/July 2007 www.simulia.com

 Customer Case Study

Using Abaqus, a 2D axisymmetric analysis
of the piston profile was performed as shown
in Figure 3. At operating loads, the results
showed some minor stress around the lip
of the piston where it fastens to the rubber
cord structure. These stress results mirrored
those we had obtained for the prior design
and suggested that the piston should have
performed correctly. A 3D analysis was
performed to further investigate the failure.
The 3D analysis results in Figure 4 also
indicated stress around the top lip of the
piston only. The stress contour plot did
not predict anything close to the distortion
we observed in the prototype test, and the
analysis ran to completion without a hitch.
The question remained. Why did the piston
buckle in the test?
The answer to the question lay in special
diagnostics generated by Abaqus while it
runs. When checking these diagnostics,
the evidence of buckling was clear. Several
warning notices highlighted in red indicated
that the system matrix had four negative
eigenvalues and that a buckling load may
have been exceeded. Abaqus contains these
specialized diagnostic messages specifically
to help engineers conduct complex analyses,
such as those required for air spring design.
It is not uncommon for us to observe negative
eigenvalues during simulation of air springs
because we use hydrostatic fluid elements
in Abaqus to model the air that compresses
inside the device. Negative eigenvalues are
sometimes associated with the order in which
With these results in hand, our air spring
engineers were able to determine how to
revise the piston design for better durability
and performance. Analysis of a subsequent
design shown in Figure 7 indicated that ribs
added to the piston greatly improved its
ability to withstand buckling loads.
At Firestone, this project furthered our
appreciation for developing good analysis
workflows with Abaqus. Analysis teams in
general may rely too much on stress contour
plots for results. We recommend always
consulting all diagnostic output in addition
to the contour plot. When used together, they
help avoid unnecessary, expensive cycles of
trial-and-error prototype testing.
Figure 7: In a subsequent design, Firestone
engineers added ribs, which increased the piston’s
ability to withstand buckling.
Pradipta Moulik
Engineering Manager,
the software solves equations. They do not
Core Technology,
always indicate an unstable system. In this Firestone Industrial
case, however, the diagnostics messages Products
about four negative eigenvalues bore out in Pradipta has been with Firestone
the physical test results. Industrial Products Company for more
than 11 years. His work involves FEA,
Our next step was to perform a modal
Rubber Compound Development, and
analysis to verify the four buckling modes.
Advanced Product Research. Pradipta
We could immediately see that the buckling
received his PhD in engineering from
modes in Abaqus predicted the prototype
failure as indicated in Figure 5. Postbuckling the Purdue School of Aeronautics and
analysis in Abaqus made the case even Astronautics.
clearer. A useful feature in the software,
called the Riks algorithm, allowed us to step
through a static nonlinear analysis and predict
the displacement visualized in Figure 6.

Figure 4: To further investigate the piston failure,
Firestone performed a 3D analysis. The analysis
ran to completion, and the 3D stress contour
plot (right) did not indicate any major problems.
However, diagnostic messages in Abaqus flagged
a warning that a buckling load may have been
exceeded.
Figure 5: Firestone engineers then performed a
modal analysis of the piston, slowly increasing the
pressure to observe how the structure deformed.
Several buckling modes predicted the deformation
observed during testing, when the piston cracked.
Figure 6: During post-buckling analysis, Abaqus
predicted major displacement to the piston at a
pressure associated with the jounce condition.

www.simulia.com INSIGHTS June/July 2007 15