Development and Analysis of GFRP Conical Springs

Increasing competition and innovation in automobile sector tends to modify the existing products or replace old products by new and advanced material products. A suspension system of vehicle is also an area where these innovations are carried out regularly. Nowadays, the automobile industry has shown much interest in using glass fibre reinforced plastics (GFRP) components replacing conventional steel components due to its ‘high strength to low weight’ ratio. Therefore, replacement of steel conical suspension springs (in heavy automobiles) with GFRP conical springs with an aim to reduce its weight was attempted. A manual pultrusion and braiding process is approached for fabricating the FRP open coil springs using e-glass and epoxy resin. Its total deformation, equivalent stress and equivalent elastic strain were analysed using GFRP conical spring at different static loads of 20, 40, 60 and 80 N.