Design and Structural Analysis of Jute/E-glass Woven Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Based Hybrid Composite Leaf Spring under Static Loading

摘要

Leaf spring is a simple form of suspension spring used to absorb vibrations induced during the motion of a vehicle. The automobile industry has shown increased interest in the replacement of steel leaf spring (65Si7) with composite leaf spring (E-glass/Epoxy) due to high strength to weight ratio, higher stiffness, high impact energy absorption and lesser stresses. This research is aimed to investigate the suitability of natural and synthetic fiber reinforced hybrid composite material in automobile leaf spring application. By using natural fibers efforts have been made to reduce the cost and weight of leaf spring. In this work an attempt is made to develop a natural and synthetic fiber reinforced hybrid composite material with optimum properties so that it can replace the existing synthetic fiber reinforced composite material in automobile leaf spring. Jute and E-glass woven roving mats are used as reinforcements and epoxy resin LY556 is used as the matrix material. The CAD models of Leaf spring are prepared in Unigraphics NX6 and imported in static structural analysis workbench of Ansys 14.5 where finite element analysis (FEA) is performed. The design constraints are stresses and deflections. This study gives a comparative analysis between steel leaf spring and Jute/E glass reinforced Epoxy leaf spring. The hybrid composite leaf spring is found to have lesser weight, lesser cost, lesser stresses and higher stiffness.