Analysis of Leaf Spring Conditions for Heavy Duty Vehicle

This paper aims to analyse leaf spring and compare nipping and non-nipping of leaf spring condition. F or this purpose, multi leaf springs, made up of structural steel have been selected. As leaf spring contribute s to considerable amount of weight of the vehicle, and hence needs to be strong enough. Leaf spring is a simple form of suspension spring and is subjected to varying stress cycles leading t o fatigue failure. The focus is on to reduce the we ight of suspension system, while maintaining the strength. The behavio r of a vehicle is directly affected by its suspensi o system, i.e. vibration characteristics, riding performance and c omfort that are directly related to its suspension system. As per the previous studies, two types of leaf spri ngs are generally used in automobile i.e. with nipp i g and without nipping. Here, a comparison is presented to understand the behavior of stress, deformation and f ilure criterion. As leaf spring plays a vital role not only in automobi le industry, but also many other areas, where impac t lo d is the criteria for failure. Hence, its analysis is essential to predict its beh avior under loading condition. The leaf spring of s teel is designed for a heavy duty vehicle, and is modeled in SOLID W ORK 13. The designed leaf spring is then analyzed b y ANSYS 14 to study various stresses, induced due to the loading over it. Analysis was done with all boundary condit ions, which includes loading and constraints. A comparison of leaf sprin g with nipping and without nipping was carried out.