Optimal leaf spring slider design for wear resistance improvement

The leaf spring and leaf spring slider on a 6X4 dumper experience contact stress and sliding friction, leading to wear on the slider. To address this issue, DMU Kinematic module of CATIA was first used to simulate the dynamics of the dumper suspensions and determine the contact region. Next, the maximum Von Mises stress at the contact region was analyzed in ANSYS Workbench, and the accuracy was verified by calculating the Hertz contact stress theoretically. Finally, parametric modeling and a screening algorithm were applied to obtain the optimal design point.

The results show that under no-load complex conditions, the maximum Von Mises stress of the slider at the contact region decreases by 35%, significantly reducing the friction force. The optimized slider passed a 10,000-km vehicle durability test and has been utilized by an actual customer for over 12 months with no serious wear issues.