During the last few decades, fibrous composite materials have been diversified and replaced some traditional metallic materials. These materials provide high strength to weight ratio together with high environmental corrosion resistance. One of the basic engineering applications, which have been attracted by the properties of these composites, is the automotive engineering.
In this paper, the authors manipulated the composite C-compression springs as a new trend of vehicle suspension system instead of coil or leaf springs. This type of springs can be safely and efficiently implemented in the vehicles' suspension systems and most probably be used in the new suspension design proposed earlier by one of the authors.
Previous work on this context had shown a quality nature and economical technology in the use of composite springs in transportation and/or industrial applications.
The present study comprises a theoretical analysis of this type of springs followed by a finite element analysis. Building some numerical models having different geometrical configuration, lay-ups, and different fibrous materials to optimize the effects of these parameters on the behavior of springs had performed the numerical analysis. Results had shown, in general, to comply with the available experimental findings that the composite materials can be great extended to be adopted safely in the design and manufacture of vehicles' suspensions.