Abstract
The suspension system of vehicle is directly influenced to ride and handling. Therefore, suspension part should have enough endurance during its lifetime to protect passenger. Spring is one of major suspension part of vehicle. Thus, in this paper, a fatigue design method for leaf spring based on proving ground response was proposed. At first, stress and displacement of leaf spring are measured through the proving ground test. And next, the maximum load acting on leaf spring assembly under driving condition was defined from the road load response. On the base of these results, fatigue tests for leaf spring assembly and 3 point bending fatigue tests for material of leaf spring were carried out. From the above, the maximum load-fatigue life relation of leaf spring material and assembly was defined, and 3 point bending test result have good agreement with leaf spring assembly fatigue test result. Thus, it is expect that economical fatigue design criterion for leaf spring assembly can be determined from fatigue data of simple smooth specimen by 3 point bending fatigue tests.