Vehicle manufacturers have long sought to reduce weight of vehicles for the purposes of improving fuel economy, increasing payload capacity, and enhancing the ride and handling characteristics of automobiles, trucks, utility vehicles, and recreational vehicles. A large proportion of vehicles employ steel leaf springs as load carrying and energy storage devices in their suspension systems. While an advantage of steel leaf springs is that they can be used as attaching linkages and/or structural members in addition to their capacity as an energy storage device, they are substantially less efficient than other types of springs in terms of energy storage capacity per unit of mass. Steel leaf springs are heavy by nature, noisy, and subject to corrosion. This weight requires additional consideration with respect to mounting requirements, as well as damping requirements. For instance, shock absorbers are often necessary with the use of steel leaf springs in order to control the mass of the leaf spring under operating conditions.
Accordingly, what is needed is an alternative leaf spring that can provide a higher energy per unit mass and thus a lighter weight assembly construction. Also needed are alternative suspension sub-assemblies.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds