Analysis of the Design of Helical Compression Spring to Study the Behaviour of Steel and Composites Used as Spring Materials

Presently the automobile manufacturers are facing challenges of improvements in the quality and performance of the components together with the reduction in weight and cost of manufacturing. Efforts are directed towards the use of alternative materials in design which results in increase of strength to weight ratio. The use of composite materials is increasing in the design of automobile components due to their light weight and costs. The present work attempts to study the feasibility of select composite materials in the design of helical compression spring used in automobile suspension systems. The design of helical compression spring is first analysed for the conventional steel material (IS 4454 Grade 3) and then compared with that of for the composites used as spring materials study their behaviours at the two loading conditions of 1500N(normal loads) and 3000N (overload). Composite materials considered for the present study are Eglasss/Epoxy and Carbon/Epoxy. The modeling of the helical spring has been done using CREO 2.0 and simulation were performed using ANSYS v 14.5 to predict the stresses, deflections and strain energies at the stated loads. It was observed that the stresses developed in composite material helical compression spring is lower as compared to the stresses developed in conventional steel (IS 4454 Grade 3)helical compression spring. Also the deflection and strain energies are observed to be higher for composite materials. The results indicate that composite materials are feasible option at normal loading conditions which will also reduce the manufacturing and maintenance costs