Fatigue life prediction of eccentric springs for the automobiles considering residual stress

Springs are widely used in the automobile industry. They can produce large elastic deformation under the action of load. The fracture failure of springs will cause significant loss or maintenance costs. The fatigue life of springs is greatly affected by load eccentricity and residual stress. Some existing methods are not accurate enough to predict the life of springs. The cracked spring stresses are computed considering load eccentricity. Based on the Walker model, a method for predicting the spring fatigue life is proposed. The model combines the superposition principle and the closure effect, and it can consider residual stress, crack closure effect, and load eccentricity at the same time. The results demonstrate that the improved model has a better performance than the Walker model.