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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.

The parabolic leaf spring plays a vital role in suspension systems, since it has an effect on ride comfort and vehicle dynamics. Primarily, leaf spring endurance must be ensured. Presently, there are two approaches to designing a leaf spring. In the traditional method, fatigue tests should be repeated for each case, considering different material, geometry and suspension hard points. However, it takes a long time and requires a heavy budget to get the optimized solution. In the contemporary method, a numerical approach is used to obtain the fatigue life and the leaf geometry against the environmental condition on the basis of material properties. This paper presents a more precise method based on non-linear finite element solutions by evaluating the effects of the production parameters, the geometrical tolerances and the variations in the characteristics of the material.