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Leaf springs are mainly used for absorbing energy associated with road outputs and they release energy coming from the road. If the complete leaf stiffness and each leaf stress distribution can be calculated carefully, while ensuring safety, required ride comfort will also be maintained. The desired vehicle ride height (attitude) under load must be taken into consideration during calculations of leaf spring design. In addition to providing the loads coming from the vehicle, leaf springs are significantly controllers of windup effects. Braking windup causes rotation at the lateral axis. When vertical F jounce load and braking moment are applied to the leaf spring simultaneously, von misses stress value on leafs will increase to a higher level which is very close to and sometimes higher than the tensile strength. The designers must ensure safety and endurance for any case during working conditions. The most critical point is front axle windup stopper position.

It has been a significant challenge to reduce weights of the vehicles to satisfy the regulations that require development of environmentally-safe vehicles with low CO2 emissions. The conventional leaf springs, designed for the optimized performance together with safety factors, are made of steel. However, it is considered that the steel leaf springs are replaced by lighter ones in order to fulfill the specified requirements. Fiber reinforced composite materials with polymer based matrix offer a great potential for manufacturing leaf springs with lightweight, high mechanical and fatigue performance. Therefore, leaf spring manufacturers have great interest in those materials to replace steel parts with the composite ones and an increasing number of studies have been published in the literature in recent years. In this study, fiber reinforced composite compared with steel leaf springs based on endurance rig tests will be presented.

Besides the innovative work in the commercial vehicles sector, where there is an ever growing competition, lighter, more comfortable, safer, and more robust products are also being developed through optimization of design parameters of currently available systems. This study explains the possible effects of changing the design parameters of leaf springs on a vehicle's driving dynamics, which has a significant effect on the total weight of the vehicle. These effects include the vehicle's suspension specifications and the suspension system's interaction with the steering system. A virtual vehicle model is analyzed under the loads gathered in road tests, to measure the stress levels on the spring layers and the movement of the leaf spring depending on the limits determined by the vehicle manufacturer. Furthermore, the conformity of the movement of the front axles in connection with the leaf spring with the steering system is also analyzed.

Leaf springs are used as the suspension elements for the front and rear axles of light and heavy commercial vehicles in the automotive key industry. While the vehicle is running empty or with a load under on-road or off-road conditions, it catches the loads transmitted from the wheels i.e., the loads from the ground to the hub axle, and working together with the damper it helps absorption of such loads and prevents them from being transmitted to the chassis. As a result, vehicle comfort is achieved. In addition to this function, leaf springs act as a safety part that continuously hold the chassis and axle together under static and dynamic loads. While the vehicle is runs under rough road conditions, the impact loads from the road not only cause negative impacts on the vehicle but also damage the drivetrain. Such impact loads substantially disturb both the vehicle and the passengers.