DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE LEAF SPRING FOR LIGHT COMMERCIAL VEHICLE (TATA ACE)

Present time the main issue of automobile industry are weight reduction. The automobile industry has looking for any implementation or modification to reduce the weight of the vehicle. The suspension leaf spring is one of the potential items for weight reduction in automobile as it accounts for 10% to 20% of the unsprung weight. The introduction of composite leaf spring made of E-glass fiber epoxy resin has made it to possible to reduce the weight of spring without any reduction on load carrying capacity and stiffness. The achievement of weight reduction with adequate improvement of mechanical properties has made composite a very good replacement material for conventional steel spring. This work deals with the replacement of multi-leaf steel spring with mono composite leaf spring for the LCV Carrying capacity and stiffness. The design constraints were limiting stresses and displacement. Modeling and analysis of both the steel and composite leaf springs have been done using ANSYS 14.5 software.