Static Design and Finite Element Analysis of Innovative CFRP Transverse Leaf Spring
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Static Design and Finite Element Analysis of Innovative CFRP Transverse Leaf Spring M. Carello 1 & A. G. Airale 1 & A. Ferraris 1 & A. Messana 1 & L. Sisca 1
Received: 13 February 2017 / Accepted: 15 February 2017 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017
Abstract This paper describes the design and the numerical modelization of a novel transverse Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) leaf-spring prototype for a multilink suspension. The most significant innovation is in the functional integration where the leaf spring has been designed to work as spring, anti-roll bar, lower and longitudinal arms at the same time. In particular, the adopted work flow maintains a very close correlation between virtual simulations and experimental tests. Firstly, several tests have been conducted on the CFRP specimen to characterize the material property. Secondly, a virtual card fitting has been carried out in order to set up the leaf-spring Finite Element (FE) model using CRASURV formulation as material law and RADIOSS as solver. Finally, extensive tests have been done on the manufactured component for validation. The results obtained show a good agreement between virtual simulation and experimental tests. Moreover, this solution enabled the suspension to reduce about 75% of the total mass without losing performance. Keywords Transversal leaf spring . CFRP . Functional integration . CRASURV . Lightweight design . RADIOSS . Card fitting . Multilink suspension
1 Introduction In the last years, car-makers focused their efforts on saving fuel in order to decrease the air level pollutants’ and respect the limit imposed by various environmental laws. In this context, the sustainable mobility has an important role: the optimization of each vehicle subsystem becomes necessary and involves not only the powertrain area but also all the mechanic assemblies [1–7]. For these reasons, the leitmotiv nowadays is lightweight design. The main target of automotive engineers becomes mass reduction without losing performance in terms of speed, handling and comfort. An interesting field has been extensively studied: the suspension system [8]. In
* A. Messana [email protected]
1
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
Appl Compos Mater
particular, the reduction of un-sprung elements of a car, represents one of the main difficult and competitive area of weight saving and the leaf spring solution lead to decrease suspension mass. A clear example was the Chevrolet Corvette C4 of 1981 replaced its 18.6 kg steel ten-leaf system with a mono leaf composite spring that weighed 3.7 kg [9]. This solution enabled the car to reduce about 15 kg of un-sprung weight maintaining similar spring mass. As a matter of the fact, the material choice becomes crucial: composites are well suited to manufacture leaf springs mainly because of their strength-weight ratio, fatigue resistance, durability and internal damping [10]. In fact, several carmakers developed different leaf spring suspension in compo
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