Mechanical Property Testing of Woven Roven Glass Fiber Specimen and Structural Analysis of a Composite Leaf Spring

Abstract

A composite material has been fabricated by laying epoxy resin over woven roven fiber mat and carbon fiber combination and its mechanical properties were attained in the Material testing Laboratory. Based on the material properties achieved, A multi-leaf steel spring used in the rear suspension system of light vehicles is designed and analyzed using ANSYS software. The finite element results showing stresses and deflections, verified the existing analytical and experimental solutions. Using the results of the steel leaf spring, a composite one made from Woven glass fiber with epoxy resin was designed and optimized using ANSYS. Main consideration was given to the optimization of the spring geometry. The objective is to obtain a spring with minimum weight that is capable of carrying given static external forces without failure. The design constraints were stresses and displacements. The results show that an optimum spring width decreases hyperbolically and the thickness increases linearly from the spring eyes towards the axle seat. Compared to the steel spring, the optimized composite spring has stresses that are much lower, the natural frequency is higher and the spring weight without eye units is lower and the cost of the composite leaf spring that has been fabricated is comparatively less.
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