Design and analysis of composite leaf springs for a commercial vehicle
LI Yunxian
LI Wei
LU Haoyu
WANG Qiang
ZHOU Shuai
Abstract：To reduce the mass of leaf springs for light trucks while meeting the curb weight limit requirements,glass fiber-epoxy resin composites are used to replace conventional steel for lightweight design and analysis of leaf springs.A geometric model of the composite leaf spring is established using the 3D modeling software Creo.According to the design stiffness requirement of 150.0(1±5％)N/mm,the fiber layup ratio is determined through finite element simulation,and the strength of the leaf spring under static vertical,braking,and cornering conditions is analyzed.Bench tests are carried out to verify the composite samples fabricated by compression molding.The results show that comparing with the original steel leaf spring,when the layup ratio of composite materials with fiber angles of 0° and 45° relative to the sample length direction is 6∶5,the leaf spring mass is reduced from 26 kg to 10 kg,representing a mass reduction of 61.5％.The simulated stiffness of the leaf spring is 153.1 N/mm,and the measured actual stiffness from bench test is 155.0 N/mm,both within the allowable deviation range of the design stiffness.The safety factors of the composite leaf spring under all working conditions are greater than 1.20,and the fatigue life in bench test reaches 300 000 cycles without failure,which meets the application requirements.
Keywords：lightweight designcomposite leaf springdesign and simulationbench test
Publication Date：2026-02-28
Online Publishing Date：2026-05-22(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：9( 70-77,85 )