Materials and Design 95 (2016) 4853

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Composite wave springs: Theory and design

H.R. Erfanian-Naziftoosi, Seyedmohammad S. Shams, Rani Elhajjar
College of Engineering & Applied Science, 3200 North Cramer St., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Multi-turn wave springs have the potential to replace conventional coil springs in a variety of applications by pro-
Received 25 November 2015 viding the same force and deection characteristics and using only half the space. In this paper, we study the me-
Received in revised form 15 January 2016 chanical behavior of a ber-reinforced composite single turn wave spring as a potential to replace conventional
Accepted 18 January 2016
steel based wave springs. Wave springs are more compact than coil springs and are adaptable for manufacturing
Available online 19 January 2016
using composites. The use of composites for the wave spring represents signicant challenges in not only under-
Keywords:
standing the elastic response, but also the failure and fatigue characteristics. In this paper, a wave spring is studied
Wave springs using experimental, analytical and numerical approaches. The analytical approach proposed is based on the the-
Carbon ber composite ory of circular beams loaded normal to the plane of curvature. The models are extended to orthotropic carbon-
Mechanical behavior epoxy wave springs with arbitrary geometric parameters. Parametric numerical models enable a detailed under-
Finite element analysis standing the effects of geometry on the mechanical behavior of the wave springs. Quasi-static and fatigue exper-
Fatigue iments are performed on the composite wave springs demonstrating excellent repeatability and a robust fatigue
Analytical model behavior.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Polymer based ber reinforced composite materials are increasingly
being used for their specic stiffness, strength, superior corrosion resis-
tance, and enhanced damping performance [1]. Such properties make
composites highly desirable in the automobile, aerospace and civilian
infrastructure. Since the introduction of ber reinforced composites, a
considerable amount of research has been done on investigating the
possibility of using advanced composites for a wide range of mechanical
components. Springs are crucial suspension elements in machine com-
ponents, and in vehicles they are necessary to decrease the vibrations
and impacts due to road irregularities [25]. Scowen [4] considered
the applicability of ber reinforced composites as feasible replacements
for steel springs in the automobile industry. Composite leaf springs have
been studied due to their ease of manufacturing and their superior fa-
tigue response [2,68]. Investigations on composite semi-elliptical sus-
pension springs have shown that the ber type and ellipticity ratio
signicantly inuenced the spring stiffness [9,10]. Mahdi et al. [3]
found that the ratio of ellipticity has signicant inuence on the spring
rate and failure loads. Tse et al. [11] proposed a theoretical model based
on the principle of minimum potential energy and veried it by exper-
imental procedures on woven E-glass ber/epoxy tin circular springs
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: elhajjar@uwm.edu (R. Elhajjar).
with parallel at surfaces. Chiu et al. [12] investigated the response of
helical composite springs by studying the effects of a rubber core and
braided outer layer on the mechanical properties of four different
types of composites [12]. They demonstrated the enhancement of fail-
ure load, and improvement in both the failure load and spring constant
by using a rubber core and braiding an outer layer helical composite
spring. In the layered composite approach of damping enhancement,
the effects of layers have been studied. Sain et al. [13] presented results
for stiffness and damping predictions by using the nite element
method in a base of layered, wave, metalpolymer composites. They
concluded that reducing the thickness of the viscous polymer layer
will increase the damping and stiffness. Wang et al. [7] used the -
nite element method to model the maximum load capacity of E-
glass/epoxy leaf spring composites. Sureshkumar [14] compared
steel and hybrid composites leaf springs by using the nite element
method. Finite element models have also been used to optimize the
material and geometry of the composite elliptical spring based on
the spring rate, log life and shear stress parameters [10,15]. Yang
et al. proposed an analytical approach for predicting the deforma-
tion behavior of single and stacked disk springs of specially
orthotropic laminates with arbitrary geometric parameters [16].
Shams et al. [17] used a continuum damage nite element analysis
approach to evaluate the damage tolerance of the composite disk
spring under fatigue loadings. More recently, Khoddam et al. [18]
fabricated metalmetal hybrids with spiral reinforcement by

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2016.01.073
0264-1275/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 H.R. Erfanian-Naziftoosi et al. / Materials and Design 95 (2016) 4853 49

torsional deformation and demonstrated improved mechanical be- circumferential coordinate have the same height. The springs assessed
havior with the reinforcement method. The use of spiral springs in this study have four waves as seen in subsequent gures. The rela-
made of composite materials is problematic in some cases since tionship between the load and deection in a wave spring made from
there are signicant torsional stresses induced. These stresses re- an isotropic material based on theory of circular beams is given by [19]:
sult in forces driving delaminations. The curing time, operating
temperatures, wear and exposure to certain chemicals can limit 4Et 3 N1 cos
P

the use of polymer composite springs. However, advances in ther- 3D2m 1 1 2 sin 2 2 1 sin 1 cos
moset and thermoplastic reinforced composite materials may re-
1
sult in the formation of reliable high temperature resistant
springs for a variety of environments.
where P is the applied load, is the deection, E is Young's modulus, and
In this investigation, carbon-ber/epoxy woven materials are
N is the number of waves. is central angle between adjacent lower and
used to design, fabricate and characterize composite wave springs. EJ
The wave springs consist of undulating waves along the circumfer- upper crests (rad), is ratio of the exural to torsional rigidity, GS
ence. The primary loading in the spring is through bending which where J is moment of inertia and S is torsional shape factor. Dm is
does not cause torsional type loading to drive delamination in the mean diameter and is ratio of radial width of the spring to mean
composite springs. Analytical solutions based on a circular beam diameter. These wave spring dimensions are shown in Fig. 1. D m
theory are developed for orthotropic laminated composites and and are dened in Eq. 2 and 3, respectively.
compared with experimental data and results from parametric -
Do Di
nite element analysis. Quasi-static and fatigue experiments are Dm 2
2
performed on the composite wave springs to understand the limits
of such designs. b
3
Dm
2. Theory
where b is the radial width of the spring and is given by:
2.1. Analytical method
Do Di
b 4
The development of the load versus deection response of the com- 2
posite wave spring begins with the analysis of wave springs from isotro-
where D o and D i are outer diameter and inner diameter of the
pic materials. Fig. 1 shows a schematic of the wave spring considered
springs, respectively. When a composite material is used, the iso-
where waves are circumferential; therefore, all points with the same
tropic assumptions are no longer valid. In a composite material,
the laminate bending moduli and Poisson ratio are given by:


12 D11 D22 D212
Ebx 5
t 3 D22


12 D11 D22 D212
Eby 6
t 3 D11

12D66
Gbxy 7
t3

D11
bxy 8
D22

where D11, D12, D22 and D66 are coefcients from the bending stiff-
ness matrix found from the classical lamination plate theory. In

Fig. 1. Schematic of the composite wave spring. Fig. 2. Wave spring model used for numerical modeling.
50 H.R. Erfanian-Naziftoosi et al. / Materials and Design 95 (2016) 4853

Fig. 3. Displacement and stress of disk spring under compressive load.

specially orthotropic laminates, the elastic modulus, E, depends on Thus the load versus deection of the composite wave spring of a
the angle, [20] by the following relationship: specially orthotropic composite can be expressed as:

" #1
4Ews t 3 N1 cos
m2
 n2
 m2 n2
P ws
 : 11
E m2 n2 bxy b n2 m2 byx 3D2m 1 1 2 sin 2 2 1 sin 1 cos
Ebx Ey Gbxy
9

where m() is cos and n() is sin . To determine the effective 2.2. Numerical models
modulus when these materials are used in a wave spring, it is nec-
essary to obtain the average modulus of the composite, Ews. This is The wave spring is modeled as a solid feature with equivalent
found by integrating Eq. (9) around the spring boundary to nd orthotropic material properties using the p-element nite element
the changing in modulus: analysis approach. In the p-version implementation, increasing the
polynomial degree of elements controls the errors of approximation of
the simulation. This is accomplished by having the order of shape func-
Z2
1 tions increased by increasing the nodes in the element. The renement
Ews Ed: 10
2 in these models is based on increasing the polynomial degree of the el-
0
ements, which is directly related to degrees of freedom in the model
[21]. The modeling approach for the material represents the composite
stack as a single layer, whose stiffness properties are equivalent to the
multilayered structure. This approach permits to exploit established
models developed for homogeneous structures. In this approach, the
number of degrees of freedom is independent from the number of
layers constituting the laminate. From the modeling point of view, this
approach has been embedded into solid element formulations. The ma-
terial coefcients are entered in the material directions, and then
assigned to the elements together with the ply angle information. The
program performs all necessary transformations to compute the equiv-
alent 3D properties in the XYZ work plane. The wave spring model is re-
strained between two steel plates using contact elements. The contact
elements allow the spring to deform with a uniform and symmetric dis-
placement without any unnecessary constraints. Displacement control

Table 1
Mechanical properties of the carbon ber/epoxy composite.

E1, GPa E2, GPa v12 G12, GPa Ply thickness, mm

57.98 56.33 0.037 4.00 0.2159

Fig. 4. Manufactured CFRP wave springs, post-cure trim and polished wave spring.
 H.R. Erfanian-Naziftoosi et al. / Materials and Design 95 (2016) 4853 51

Fig. 6. The effect of diameter ratio on the spring stiffness using the nite element method.

Fig. 5. Load versus deection curves for a 6 ply composite wave spring.

using a compression molding approach. The Toray T700SC-12K-50C

Table 2
Geometry of the composite wave springs fabricated and tested.
Type of springs Number of layers Do, mm Di, mm Thickness, mm
A 4 88.9 63.5 0.8636
B 6 88.9 63.5 1.2954
C 8 88.9 63.5 1.7272
analysis is performed by applying displacement to the top surface of the
steel plate. A fully constrained surface on the bottom steel plate is ap-
plied. The model has the advantage of using parametric geometry
with design variables for inner and outer diameters, material properties,
spring thickness, waviness height and applied displacement. This ap-
proach has been previously used for designing a patch repair in compos-
ite laminates [22]. The primary advantage of using the p-version
implementation is the ability to check the convergence of the solutions
with increasing element order. Increasing the polynomial degree of the
elements is related to the error of approximation. These errors are re-
duced exponentially as the number of degrees of freedom is increased.
Fig. 2 shows the nite element mesh of the wave spring model
sandwiched in between the two steel plates. Fig. 3 shows the displace-
ment and stress contours showing the primarily bending response in
the wave spring. The global energy norm is calculated for each polyno-
mial order as an indicator of the convergence of the solution. Error in
convergence of analysis is performed on the results by examining the
strain invariant results and analyzing the global energy norm versus
the polynomial order. Convergence is achieved for polynomial orders
above 6 and with the error less than 2% after using the eighth order
polynomial element.
3. Experimental method
3.1. Fabrication of carbon-ber wave springs
Carbon-ber/epoxy composite wave springs with inner and outer
diameter of 63.5 mm and 8.9 mm, respectively were manufactured
ber with #2510 epoxy resins (Toray Industries; Chuo, Japan) was
used in prepreg plain weave form with a [0/90]4,6,8 ber orientation.
The prepreg was cut in ring shapes to fabricate the springs having 4, 6,
and 8 layers respectively. A total of 30 wave springs were fabricated as
part of this study containing 4 waves per spring. The thickness of each
layer is 1.47 mm leading to springs having 5.8 mm, 8.8 mm and
11.7 mm thicknesses respectively (Fig. 4). For fabrication of wave
springs, the prepreg layers were assembled into the stacking sequence
followed by a layer of Teon placed on top and bottom of the stack
and then placed in stainless steel molds for curing using a press-
claving device where uniform heat and pressure are applied per the rec-
ommended 121 C cure cycle. Finally, the springs were machined to
their nominal inner and outer diameters of 63.5 mm and 89 mm, re-
spectively. Fig. 4 shows the spring after the nishing process.
3.2. Mechanical testing
ASTM D3039 [23] was also used to determine the composite's elastic
properties in the axial and transverse directions. The results from cou-
pon specimens are reported in Table 1. The plates were manufactured
using a similar procedure to that used in the manufacturing of the
springs. Ultrasonic through transmission immersion nondestructive
testing was performed for studying the amount of porosity and defects
in the springs before testing. No damage was seen to propagate in the
specimens from the ultrasonic tests. Fatigue life test was also carried
on wave spring at different cycles and under quasi-static conditions. In
order to nd the fatigue life curve different load applied on samples.
The rst cycle ignored due to hysteresis effects and the work height
(WH) of samples measured at different number of cycles. Fatigue test
has done up to 10 million cyclic load. Two at steel platens were used
for applying the compressive force on the composite springs using dis-
placement control. Although there is a little friction between the platens
and springs, it is neglected for individual tests. The springs were loaded
in quasi-static fashion at a rate of 0.5 mm/min. The springs were com-
pressed to 100% of the original height. There is a range in the curve

Table 3
Parametric studies evaluated using nite element method.

Studies Thickness Inner diameter Outer diameter Work height

t, mm Di, mm Do, mm WH, mm

Thickness 0.8636, 1.2954, 1.7272 63.5 88.9 8.128

Diameter ratio 0.8636, 1.2954, 1.7272 25.4 to 81.28 88.9 8.128
Work height 0.8636 63.5 88.9 2.54 to 7.62
52 H.R. Erfanian-Naziftoosi et al. / Materials and Design 95 (2016) 4853
Fig. 7. The effect of diameter ratio on the spring stiffness using the analytical approach.
from approximately 0% deection to 20% deection where the spring
rate is lower than a typical steel spring, and there is a range in the
curve from approximate 70% deection to 100% deection where the
spring rate is higher than a typical steel spring. Fig. 5 shows the results
from the load versus deection curves of the 6 plies springs, removing
the data from the experimental data for the non-linear ranges (0%
20% and 70%100%) and using linear regression in the rest of the data.
The slope from the resulting linear equation is the spring rate. As it
can be seen from the numerical response in Fig. 5 that the nonlinearity
of the curve is increased by raising the deection beyond 80%.
4. Results and discussion
The compression test results of composite wave springs are obtained
experimentally and compared with the analytical model and the nite
element predictions. Geometry properties of wave springs are reported
in Table 2. The results for a 6-ply composite are presented by load vs. de-
ection curves in Fig. 5. This curve includes the prediction from the an-
alytical solution and numerical approach. The divergence of the
numerical solution maybe due to the contact stiffness induced in the nu-
merical model and is not considered in the parametric studies consid-
ered. Table 4 shows a summary of the test results with the analytical
and numerical approaches.
Studies using the numerical approach have been performed to in-
vestigate critical design aspects of the composite wave springs
(Table 3). In the rst design study, the effects of different laminate thick-
nesses are examined showing a nonlinear relationship as a function of
the diameter ratio. The increase in load (and stiffness since deection
applied is constant) is a nonlinear relation with the diameter ratio for
different thickness as shown in Fig. 6. The analytical solution is shown
in Fig. 7. The gures were obtained by increasing the ratio of the spring's
outer diameter to the inner diameter, Do/Di. The outer diameter, Do, was
kept constant at 88.8 mm and the inner diameter, Di, was varied from
25 mm to 81 mm. The load values were measured by using a 1.30 mm
constant deection. The numerical model showed a higher stiffness
for the springs for Do/Di N 1.5 compared to the analytical solution. This
Table 4
Summary of the mechanical test results on composite wave springs.
Type of Stiffness Stiffness Stiffness % error
springs experimental numerical analytical numerical
N/mm N/mm N/mm
A 20.82 25.31 20.26 21%
B 61.98 75.65 68.39 22%
C 148.52 171.78 162.11 15%
Fig. 8. The effect of work height (WH) on the load versus deection response.
change in stiffness can be attributed to the contact surfaces in the nite
element model which the analytical solution does not consider. Also,
the analytical model shows that when the outer diameter is approxi-
mately twice the inner diameter, the maximum load will be achieved.
Increasing the diameter beyond this point does not result in signicant
load increases.
Another study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the working
height (WH) on the spring load. Fig. 8 shows the loaddeection curves
for 4-ply wave spring with constant outer and inner diameter and dif-
ferent work heights. Results in Fig. 8 show that increasing the work
height causes a reduction in the stiffness since the curved portion length
increases compared to the spring with the smaller worker height where
more of the length is less curved. For example the stiffness for the spring
with 2.5 mm work height is 34.48 N/mm and it decreases to 27.86 N/
mm for a spring with 7.6 mm work height. At the end of the linear por-
tion of the curves, the nonlinear response of the spring is dominated by
contact with the support.
The results of the fatigue testing show a robust behavior over the en-
tire range of response tested. Fatigue tests were performed on 6 ply
wave springs at different increments from 47% to 77% of the wave spring
free height. Fig. 9 shows a at curve for most of the cycling history with
the slope dependent on the work height compression. After
5 million cycles, the springs showed signicant reductions in stiffness
but in all cases retained at least 50% of their initial stiffness at the conclu-
sion of the test. The carbon bers are very stiff and can also affect the
loading xtures. However, for this study, the reduction in stiffness can
% error
analytical
2%
10%
9%
Fig. 9. Fatigue behavior of composite disk springs.
 H.R. Erfanian-Naziftoosi et al. / Materials and Design 95 (2016) 4853
be attributed to the uneven wear on the surface of the springs primarily
in the resin rich reasons near the edges. After 2 million cycles, we can
observe wear near the outer radius of the springs running in the radial
direction.
5. Conclusions
The static and fatigue response of composite wave springs has been
investigated using closed form solutions, nite element modeling and
experimental tests. The following conclusions are obtained from this
study:
1. The analytical and numerical approaches are capable to represent the
linear region of the response but are limited in capturing the contact
of the wave spring with a rigid surface.
2. The analytical approach used does not consider out-of-plane stresses
that may drive delaminations in other designs. The out-of-plane be-
havior can be dominated by the lower resin properties. In the speci-
mens fabricated, these stresses did not control the design. A three-
dimensional formulation to account for the stresses driving delami-
nations maybe necessary for other designs.
3. The nite element parametric models show the effects of the work
heights, thicknesses, and diameters on the stiffness. Reducing the
work height results in signicant changes to the stiffness. The p-
element solution provides a reasonable solution in simulating the
initial response.
4. The stiffness does not scale linearly with thickness or the other geo-
metric parameters (Figs. 6 to 8) showing the need for analytical or
numerical models for proper design.
5. The fatigue test results show that the composite wave springs de-
signed and fabricated retain approximately 50% of their initial stiff-
ness after more than 10 million load cycles. After 5 million cycles, a
sharp increase in the progressive failure behavior is observed. A at
load versus cycles slope is seen up to 5 million cyclic loads and the
slope is a function of the compression load.
References
[1] J. Zhang, K. Chaisombat, S. He, C.H. Wang, Hybrid composite laminates reinforced
with glass/carbon woven fabrics for lightweight load bearing structures, Mater.
Des. 36 (2012) 7580.
53
[2] H.A. Al-Qureshi, Automobile leaf springs from composite materials, J. Mater. Process.
Technol. 118 (2001) 5861.
[3] E. Mahdi, O.M.S. Alkoles, A.M.S. Hamouda, B.B. Sahari, R. Yonus, G. Goudah, Light
composite elliptic springs for vehicle suspension, Compos. Struct. 75 (2006) 2428.
[4] G.D. Scowen, Transport applications for bre reinforced composites, IMechE Confer-
ence 1986, pp. 245255.
[5] K. Thern, A. Lundin, Advanced composite materials for road vehicles, Mater. Des. 11
(1990) 7175.
[6] E. Sancaktar, M. Gratton, Design, analysis, and optimization of composite leaf springs
for light vehicle applications, Compos. Struct. 44 (1999) 195204.
[7] J. Wang, Z. Li, Q. Jiang, The analysis of composite leaf spring by nite element
method and experimental measurements, Proceedings of the FISITA 2012 World
Automotive CongressSpringer Berlin Heidelberg 2013, pp. 823829.
[8] C. Subramanian, S. Senthilvelan, Effect of reinforced ber length on the joint perfor-
mance of thermoplastic leaf spring, Mater. Des. 31 (2010) 37333741.
[9] E. Mahdi, A.M.S. Hamouda, An experimental investigation into mechanical behavior
of hybrid and nonhybrid composite semi-elliptical springs, Mater. Des. 52 (2013)
504513.
[10] A.R.A. Talib, A. Ali, G. Goudah, N.A.C. Lah, A. Golestaneh, Developing a composite
based elliptic spring for automotive applications, Mater. Des. 31 (2010) 475484.
[11] P.C. Tse, K.J. Lau, W.H. Wong, S.R. Reid, Spring stiffnesses of composite circular
springs with extended at contact surfaces under unidirectional line-loading and
surface-loading congurations, Compos. Struct. 55 (2002) 367386.
[12] C.-H. Chiu, C.-L. Hwan, H.-S. Tsai, W.-P. Lee, An experimental investigation into the
mechanical behaviors of helical composite springs, Compos. Struct. 77 (2007)
331340.
[13] T. Sain, J. Meaud, G. Hulbert, E.M. Arruda, A.M. Waas, Simultaneously high stiffness
and damping in a class of wavy layered composites, Compos. Struct. 101 (2013)
104110.
[14] M. Sureshkumar, P. Tamilselvam, R. Kumaravelan, R. Dharmalingam, Design, fabri-
cation, and analysis of a hybrid FIBER composite monoleaf spring using carbon
and E-glass bers for automotive suspension applications, Mech. Compos. Mater.
50 (2014) 115122.
[15] P.B. Tapkir, B. Nelge, Fatigue life prediction of composite semi-elliptical leaf spring
for heavy vehicle, Int. J. Eng. Sci. Res. Technol. 4 (2015) 194199.
[16] P. Yang, S.V. Dyke, R.F. Elhajjar, Nonlinear structural analysis of composite disk
springs, Steel Compos. Struct. 18 (2015) 775791.
[17] S. Shams, P. Yang, R. Elhajjar, Damage initiation and fatigue behavior of carbon-ber
composite disk springs, SAE Int. J. Mater. Manuf. 9 (2016).
[18] S. Khoddam, Y. Estrin, H. Kim, O. Bouaziz, Torsional and compressive behaviours of a
hybrid material: spiral bre reinforced metal matrix composite, Mater. Des. 85
(2015) 404411.
[19] E. Dragoni, A contribution to wave spring design, J. Strain Anal. Eng. Des. 23 (1988)
145153.
[20] I.M. Daniel, O. Ishai, I.M. Daniel, I. Daniel, Engineering Mechanics of Composite Ma-
terials, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994.
[21] Stress Check Ver 9.0., Stress Check, 9.0 ed. Engineering Software Research & Devel-
opment, St Louis, MO, 2010.
[22] S.S. Shams, R.F. El-Hajjar, Overlay patch repair of scratch damage in carbon ber/
epoxy laminated composites, Compos. A: Appl. Sci. Manuf. 49 (2013) 148156.
[23] ASTM D3039/D3039M-14, Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Polymer
Matrix Composite Materials, West Conshohocken, PA, ASTM International, 2014.