Evaluation of Energy-Based Model Generated Strain Signals for Carbon Steel Spring Fatigue Life Assessment

Abstract

This paper presents the evaluation of the automobile coil-spring strain-displacement relationship for strain signals generation and fatigue life predictions. The development of a strain and spring vertical displacement relationship is significant because measuring vehicle wheel displacements and forces are complex and costly. Hence, there is a need to estimate the strain data using alternative measurement, such as vibration signals. In this analysis, strain and acceleration data were collected from a vehicle that has travelled on different road conditions. Through the material elastic strain energy and spring potential energy relationship, a coil-spring parameterise strain-displacement relationship has been developed and evaluated using a scatter band and correlation approach. Using this proposed model, the strain time histories were obtained based on acceleration data. For fatigue life analysis, most of the predicted fatigue life was distributed in the acceptable range using the scatter band approach where the data correlated at coefficient of determination value (R2) of 0.8788. With a suitable correlation value, this analysis proposed an alternative strain generation method for suspension coil spring fatigue life prediction, which could significantly shorten the spring development time.