CAE Analysis And Research Of Three-phase Tapered Leaf Spring

Leaf spring is an elastic component which is often used in dependent-type suspension on modern vehicles. In contrast with the other leaf springs suspension, three-phase tapered leaf spring suspension has the best stiffness characteristic, which stiffness curve is closed to the ideal stiffness curve. With the improvement of the crafts of the tapered leaf spring, three-phase tapered leaf spring is being used more and more wildly. By means of the finite element method (FEM), A CAE performance analysis on one type of three-phase tapered leaf spring was implemented.Firstly, the 3D model of each spring leaf which at free condition was constructed by UG according to the design parameters such as dimension, free radius, free camber and so on. Then a preliminary assembly was made.Secondly, a FE model of the three-phase tapered leaf spring was constructed by HyperMesh’mapped mesh. To figure out the nonlinear contact condition of the leaf spring, contact elements were used to type to simulate the contact region of leaf spring and treat with the elements’attributes properly. A simulation of three-phase tapered leaf spring assemble was performed and the prestress produced during this process was calculated. After simulating the stiffness test, the stiffness curve was obtained, compared which to experimental curve to confirm the stiffness value.Lastly, a fatigue analysis simulation was implemented by ANSYS/Fatigue with the help of the material S-N curve, considering the influence on fatigue characteristics of the leaf spring real feature. The fatigue dangerous area was located and the fatigue life of the three-phase tapered leaf spring was calculated. Then the damp scale of this three-phase tapered leaf spring was obtained after a damp characteristic analysis was made according to the theory of mechanical vibration.By means of the FEM based on contact, a stiffness, fatigue and damp simulation of one type of three-phase tapered leaf spring was implemented. After comparing the simulation results with the experimental results, a conclusion was made that the FEM based on contact has high accuracy in analyzing characters of leaf spring and the S-N curve method can predict the fatigue dangerous area and fatigue life well and truly, which can effectively instruct the design and decrease the cost.