• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.229-235
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• 1996

The tapered leaf spring is regarded as the adequate tool to improve ride quality and to reduce vehicle weight of commercial vehicles. These effects are due to minimizing the contact area of each leaf by reducing the number of leaves and by optimizing the thickness profile of each leaf. But in adapting the tapered leaf spring to improve ride quality, we often have some problems of bad pitching and bouncing motion. This paper shows the basic properties of tapered leaf spring by rig tests and how to improve ride quality of a vehicle with tapered leaf springs, compared with multi-leaf spring. From the results of vehicle tests and rig tests it is concluded that the ride quality was effected by the dynamic spring rate and the friction of the tapered leaf spring.