Analysis of a Primary Suspension Spring Used In Locomotives

A spring is an elastic object which is used to store mechanical energy. It can be twisted, pulled or stretched by applying force and returns to its original shape upon release of force. In practice, the spring tends to buckling under the compressive load. Thus, the guiding components are usually used to constrain the buckling deflection, and the spring can continue to work in the normal situation. In these states, the deflection of the spring satisfies the small deformation assumption. This work is helpful in figuring out the behavior of post-buckling of the compressed helical spring. A typical locomotive suspension spring configuration is chosen for this study. This work is mainly concentrated on modeling and analysis of primary suspension spring (20NiCrMo2) and comparing with the earlier conventional steel helical spring (Chrome Vanadium). The objective of this research is to reduce the overall stresses and deflections of the helical spring by using the new material. The buckling analyses of the locomotive suspension spring are performed using ANSYS 14.0 and compared with analytical results. The spring model is done by using Pro/E Wildfire 4.0.