Numerical Analysis And Experimental Research For Balanced Suspension’s Leaf Spring Of A Heavy Vehicle

At present, comfort and vehicle passablility of the automobile,especially for heavy vehicles, have become increasingly demanding. Because of its low cost, simple structure, easy maintenance, etc, leaf spring is widely used in balance suspension. The application is essential to the development of heavy vehicles transport technology. In this paper, we take a truck as the platform, studying on the leaf springs through the finite element analysis and mechanical properties performance test; meanwhile, we do the dynamics simulation test to show the performance of the heavy vehicles’balance suspension. The main contents are listed as follows:(1) Analyzes the structure, working principle, type and characteristics of the heavy vehicles’balance suspension and leaf spring. Study the calculation of critical parameters of multi-leaf spring. Building the geometric of the leaf spring with the three-dimensional modeling software of UG. The analysis of the stiffness of the leaf spring is carried out with the contact nonlinear element provided by the joint of Hypermesh and ANSYS software. The assembly leaf spring of the initial state based on finite element modeling method with the contact nonlinear element is modeled. The virtual assembly simulation and the full-loading process simulation are carried out based on the model. The leaf spring stiffness is calculated according to the load-deflection curves.(2) According to JB3383 "test methods of automobile leaf spring", the leaf spring mechanical properties performance and stress distribution are tested by the use of leaf spring performance test machine and data acquisition system NI SCXI -1520.And the results of the experimental data are also recorded and processed. It is found that the stiffness result of simulated calculation by the program is in good agreement with the test result.(3) We use the discrete BEAM modeling method to study spring and set up the balanced suspension’s multi-body dynamics model. Then, we analyst the simulation of suspension’s overall stiffness and pulse input at different speeds to carry out the maximum acceleration of the sprung mass response analysis. The results showed that the trend of the acceleration of sprung mass consistent with the actual.