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A simply supported or a cantilever beam may be used as a leaf spring. The crosssection of the beam may be uniform or the strength may be made uniform by keeping either a constant thickness or a constant width Generally the thickness of the beam is kept constant to have uniform strength and the width is varied. In Fig. 5.1(a) a cantilever beam has been shown with uniform and varying width. The maximum bending stress in both the beam is same as given by
Fig. 5.1 Leaf springs. The maximum deflection of the beam of uniform cross-section is,
Fig. 5.1 (b) shows a simply supported beam having uniform as well is variable width. The maximum bending stress in both the beams is the same and is given by:
It may be observed that beams of uniform strength permit a considerable saving in material and at the same time provide greater deflection. This means that their resilience and capacity for absorbing impact energy is also greater. The width of the beam at the ends of the beam should be theoretically zero due to the bending moment to be zero there. But to take the shear stress at the ends, the beam must have some finite width. As shown in Fig. 5.2 (a), for a simply supported beam of uniform strength, the width at a distance x from the ends is given by :
Laminated Springs To take the necessary bending at the centre, the width b may become too large in a single leaf spring. In order to decrease the width, the diamond-shaped plate shown in Fig. 5.2 (a) can be assumed to be cut into narrow strips as indicated in Fig. 5.2 (b), and then assembled with a clamp. The width of each leaf will be b' = bin, where n is the number of leaves. Such a spring is called a laminated spring and is very commonly used in automobiles, railway cars etc. The maximum bending stress and deflection value shall be the same as for the original plate.
For a semi-elliptical spring, we have
In an actual laminated spring, the full-length leaves must have square ends as shown in Fig. 5.2 (c) at the bottom. However, it is always better to taper the ends as shown in Fig. 5.2 (c) in the middle. The unloaded spring is curved, or cambered. The magnitude of camber being such that the spring is approximately straight under the full static load. The camber under the maximum dynamic load will be negative. Table 5.3 Factor of Safety for Laminated Springs
where f stands for the full1ength leaves. If a triangular plate is cut into n strips and placed one above the other to form a graduated leaf spring, then
Where the subscript g stands for graduated leaves. For the deflection to be the same for full-length and graduated leaves, it can be shown that
The load on the centre bolt Fb required to close the gap is:
Fig.5.4