Static, Modal and Fatigue Life Prediction through CAE for a Leaf Spring used in Light Commercial Vehicle

The leaf spring is widely used in automobiles and one of the components of suspension system. It needs to have excellent fatigue life. As a general rule, the leaf spring must be regarded as a safety component as failure could lead to severe accidents. The purpose of this paper is to analyze static, modal and predict the fatigue life of steel leaf spring along with analytical stress and deflection calculations. This present work describes static, modal and fatigue analysis of a existing leaf spring and modifying existing steel leaf spring by reducing no of graduated leaves and increasing thickness. The dimensions of a modified leaf spring of a LCV are taken and are verified by design calculations. The non-linear static analysis of 2D model of the leaf spring is performed using NASTRAN solver and compared with analytical results. The fatigue life is carried out by MS fatigue. The pre processing of the modified model is done by using HYPERMESH software.