Predicting the fatigue life of an automotive coil spring considering road surface roughness

The current work aims to determine the life of an automotive coil spring due to road surface roughness. Strain gages were installed at the critical and the non-critical areas of the coil spring and driven the vehicle on road surfaces at different speeds. Driving the vehicle on the rural road resulted in 88.4% and 83.9% decreases in the useful life in comparison to the highway and the urban roads, respectively. It concluded that, a road surface with bumps, holes and uneven tar patch as well as driving behavior like turns, speed changes, accelerations and brakes affects the car component life significantly.