Characteristics of a Suspension Spring under Varying Thickness and Material

A suspension system or shock absorber is a mechanical device designed to smooth out or dampshock impulse, and dissipate kinetic energy. The shock absorbers duty is to absorb or dissipate energy. In a vehicle, it reduces the effect of traveling over rough ground, leading to improved ride quality, and increase in comfort due to substantially reduced amplitude of disturbances. When a vehicle is traveling on a level road and the wheels strike a bump, the spring is compressed quickly. The compressed spring will attempt to return to its normal loaded length and, in so doing, will rebound past its normal height, causing the body to be lifted. The weight of the vehicle will then push the spring down below its normal loaded height. This, in turn, causes the spring to rebound again. This bouncing process is repeated over and over, a little less each time, until the up-and-down movement finally stops. If bouncing is allowed to go uncontrolled, it will not only cause an uncomfortable ride but will make handling of the vehicle very difficult. The design of spring in suspension system is very important. In this project a shock absorber is designed and a 2D model is created using Pro/Engineer. The model is also changed by changing the thickness of the spring. Structural analysis and modal analysis are done on the shock absorber by varying material for spring, Spring Steel and Beryllium Copper. The analysis is done by considering loads, bike weight, single person and 2 persons. Structural analysis is done to validate the strength and modal analysis is done to determine the displacements for different frequencies for number of modes. Comparison is done for two materials to verify best material for spring in Shock absorber. Modeling is done in Pro/ENGINEER and analysis is done in ANSYS. Pro/ENGINEER is the standard in 2D product design, featuring industry-leading productivity tools that promote best practices in design. ANSYS is general-purpose finite element analysis (FEA) software package. Finite Element Analysis is a numerical method of deconstructing a complex system into very small pieces (of user-designated size) called elements.