Optimization Of Heavy Vehicle Suspension System Using Optimization Of Heavy Vehicle Suspension System Using Optimization Of Heavy Vehicle Suspension System Using Optimization Of Heavy Vehicle Suspension System Using Composites

A leaf spring is a simple form of spring, commonly used for the suspension in wheeled vehicles. Leaf Springs are long and narrow plates attached to the frame of a trailer that rest above or below the trailer's axle. There are mono leaf springs, or single-leaf springs, that consist of simply one strip of spring steel. These are usually thick in the middle and taper out toward the end, and they don't typically offer too much strength and suspension for towed vehicles. Drivers looking to tow heavier loads typically use multi leaf springs, which consist of several leaf springs of varying length stacked on top of each other. The shorter the leaf spring, the closer to the bottom it will be, giving it the same semielliptical shape a single leaf spring gets from being thicker in the middle. The automobile industry has shown increased interest in the replacement of steel spring with fiberglass composite leaf spring due to high strength to weight ratio .In this paper a leaf spring used in a heavy vehicle is designed. While designing leaf spring following four cases are considered: by changing the thickness, changing no. of leaves, changing camber and changing span.