Parabolic leaf springs are used as safety parts in heavy/ light commercial vehicles. When designing leaf springs, one must complete the evaluation from the perspectives of fatigue life and durability in order to ensure optimization of the design. After the initial design, rather than trying to establish optimization by producing prototypes by trial and error method, using the virtual prototype process to achieve design optimization, thereby reducing the costs will offer competitive advantage for both suppliers and original equipment manufacturers in the global market.
In a reference study carried out in a partnership with Ford Otosan, the finite element methodology was used to verify the design of a 4- layered parabolic leaf spring and a multi-parabolic spring designed as its alternative. The stress distribution on layers during vertical, loaded and windup moment was examined.
In order to ensure the reliability of the virtual design optimization as well the production of the right design and prototype at one sitting, the vehicle was run on bad roads and then data on micro strains generated by vertical load and the loads from the other directions on the leaf spring were gathered from the road load data.
This study includes reference information related to the correlation between the factors obtained from the CAE studies, endurance rig test and road load data as well as the design that must be considered for producing a prototype at one sitting and at the desired comfort level.