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Multibody Modeling
MotionView is a general pre-processor for Multibody Dynamics.
Vehicle Modeling
Explore the various vehicle modeling tools.
Leaf Spring Modeling
Leaf Spring Builder
The Leaf Spring Builder is used to model leaf springs, using rigid bodies, beams, and contact forces. It can information about the number of leaves, the leaf shapes, cross-sections, material properties, contact properties, shackle length (if your spring employs a shackle), nominal axle load and other information, to create an MDL system definition, which can be imported into a suspension or full vehicle model.
Assembled and Loaded Leaf Spring
An assembled and loaded Leaf Spring is used to model the leaf spring with information that one can easily retrieve. Generally, one can see the leaf spring assembled in trucks and also know the axle load on the leaf spring.

Welcome
What's New
View new features for Altair HyperWorks 2024.1.
Get Started
Learn the basics and discover the workspace.
Tutorials
Learn more about the Altair HyperWorks suite of products with interactive tutorials.
Startup Procedures and Customizations
Start and configure the applications.
Tool Finder
View a list of deprecated panels and their newer, equivalent workflows.
Manage Files and Data
Create, open, import, and save models.
Sessions and Report Templates
Set up sessions and create report templates.
Interface with External Products
Solver interfaces supported in HyperMesh.
Entities and Solver Interfaces
A solver interface is made up of a template and a FE-input reader.
Browsers
Browsers provide a structured view of model data, which you can use to review, modify, create, and manage the contents of a model. In addition to visualization, browsers offer features like search, filtering, and sorting, which enhance your ability to navigate and interact with the model data.
Sketching
Create and edit 2D parametric sketch geometry.
Topology
Create, edit, and cleanup geometry.
FE Geometry
FE geometry is topology on top of mesh, meaning CAD and mesh exist as a single entity. The purpose of FE geometry is to add vertices, edges, surfaces, and solids on FE models which have no CAD geometry.
Meshing and Elements
Explore the different types of mesh you can create in HyperMesh and create and edit 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D elements.
Model Build and Assembly
Create, organize and manage parts and subsystems.
Composites
HyperMesh composites modeling.
Connectors
Create connections between parts of your model.
Morph
Rapidly change the shape of the FE mesh without severely sacrificing the mesh quality.
Skeleton Modeling
Create a reduced ordered model to facilitate optimization at the concept phase.
Design Space
Workflow to support topology optimization model build and setup.
Optimization
Setup an Optimization in HyperMesh.
Design Explorer
Multi-disciplinary design exploration and optimization tools.
Validate
Validate the model built before running solver analysis.
Analyze
Models require loads and boundary conditions in order to represent the various physics and/or physical equivalents to bench and in-use testing.
Axisymmetry
Reduce a full 3D model with axisymmetric surfaces while accounting for imperfections.
Concept Modeling
Tools and workflows that are dedicated to rapidly creating new parts for specific use cases, or amending existing parts. The current capabilities are focused on stiffening parts.
Crash and Safety
Tools used for crash and safety analysis.
Airbag
Use airbag folder utilities and export a resulting airbag in a Radioss deck.
Aerospace
Essential utility tools developed using HyperMesh-Tcl.
Aeroelasticity
Import an aeroelastic finite element model with Nastran Bulk Data format.
Certification
Framework to plug certification methods to assess margin of safety from the model and result information.
PhysicsAI
Use PhysicsAI to build fast predictive models from CAE data. PhysicsAI can be trained on data with any physics or remeshing and without design variables.
Results Data
Results data can be post-processed using both HyperMesh and HyperView.
Developer
The Developer ribbon contains tools for automation and customization.
Plot Data
HyperGraph is a data analysis and plotting tool with interfaces to many file formats.
Multibody Modeling
MotionView is a general pre-processor for Multibody Dynamics.
- MotionView Overview
  MotionView is a general pre-processor for Multibody Dynamics.
- Model Browser
  The Model Browser allows you to view the MotionView model structure while providing display and editing control of entities.
- MotionView Ribbons
  The MotionView ribbons allows you to quickly access tools and standard functions, and is located along the top of MotionView.
- MotionView CAD Interfacing
  MotionView supports the importing of several types of CAD and FE formats.
- Flexible Bodies
  MotionView has many pre-processing and post-processing capabilities with regards to flexible bodies, or flexbodies, for multibody dynamics models.
- Functional Mockup Unit (FMU)
  Add an FMU to the model or export a model as an FMU.
- Vehicle Modeling
  Explore the various vehicle modeling tools.
  - Build and Analyze Models
  - Vehicle Libraries
  - Components Library
  - Leaf Spring Modeling
    - Leaf Spring Builder
      The Leaf Spring Builder is used to model leaf springs, using rigid bodies, beams, and contact forces. It can information about the number of leaves, the leaf shapes, cross-sections, material properties, contact properties, shackle length (if your spring employs a shackle), nominal axle load and other information, to create an MDL system definition, which can be imported into a suspension or full vehicle model.
      - General
        The General option in the tree browser provides basic details and displays the entire model in the Help section. It is necessary for all the property files.
      - Leaves
        The Leaves component allows you to add a stack of leaves, with each subsequent leaf shorter than the previous one.
      - Leaf Ends
        The Leaf Ends component provides details about the leaf end types at the front and rear ends. Currently, two types of leaf ends are supported. Other possible options will be slider end.
      - Clips
        The Clips component is used to define the clip properties.
      - Axle
        The Axle component is required to define the options in the Axle Properties section.
      - Materials
        Material properties are used for the beam elements in constructing the leaves.
      - Bushings
        Bushings are typically used to reduce vibration and noise, absorb shock, and accommodate misalignments.
      - Contacts
        The Contacts component is required to define the options in the Contact Properties section for inter-leaf contacts.
      - Shackle
        The Shackle component is used to define the orientation of the shackle with respect to the leaf eye on to which it is going to get mounted. It is only required if either of the eye hooks are not “Slider”.
      - Clip Details
        In the Clip details component, you can enter the required number of clips that have to be included in the Total number of Clips text field.
      - Build
        The Build component is the final step to build a leaf spring model in MotionView. The Leaf Spring Builder saves the data you have entered to build a model and it can be imported in a leaf spring property file format.
      - Test
        The Test component is required to define the options in the Test Properties section.
      - Assembled and Loaded Leaf Spring
        An assembled and loaded Leaf Spring is used to model the leaf spring with information that one can easily retrieve. Generally, one can see the leaf spring assembled in trucks and also know the axle load on the leaf spring.
  - Road Modeling
  - Tire Modeling
  - Soft Soil Modeling
  - Full Vehicle Events and Altair Driver
  - Road Tools
  - 1D Vehicle System Models
  - Update Model Tool
  - Aerodynamics
  - Track Builder
- Tcl/Tk Reference Guide
  Reference material for the scripting interface which is a set of Tcl/Tk commands.
- MDL Reference Guide
  Reference materials for the MotionView MDL Language, Tire Modeling, and the MDL Library.
- MotionSolve Reference Guide
  Reference material detailing command statements, model statements, functions and the Subroutine Interface available in MotionSolve.
- Templex and Math Reference Guide
  Reference material for Templex (a general purpose text and numeric processor) and additional mathematical functions and operators.
- MotionView Python Reference Guide
  Reference materials for the MotionView Python Language.
Media Files
MediaView plays video files, displays static images, tracks objects, and measures distances.
Tabulate Results
Use TableView to create an Excel-like spreadsheet.
Text Files
TextView math scripts reference vector data from HyperGraph windows to automate data processing and data summary.
Publishing and Reporting
Create, define, and export reports.

View All Altair HyperWorks Help

Assembled and Loaded Leaf Spring

An assembled and loaded Leaf Spring is used to model the leaf spring with information that one can easily retrieve. Generally, one can see the leaf spring assembled in trucks and also know the axle load on the leaf spring.

Figure 1.

To model the leaf spring with the Assembled and Loaded option, you will need the profile of the leaf spring in the final Loaded Position (after assembling in truck) along with the axle load on the leaf spring. It helps to build the leaf spring model with the provided shape, with preloads on each beam (each leaf in a leaf spring is modeled with a set of beams), which gives the overall load of the provided axle load.

The preloads on each beam are calculated based on the following assumptions:

Moments at leaf eyes are 0.
Moment at the axle comes equally from all of the leaves.
For calculating the preloads, only the tip contacts are taken into consideration.
Only master leaf and graduated leaves will take part in the design load. In other words, the design load will only be distributed among the master leaf and graduated leaves.

Leaf Spring in Design Shape

The following image shows the leaf spring in design shape, which is in equilibrium.

Figure 2.

Solving for Feye and Fshackle:

Moments due to these forces at axle are

If there are n leaves in the system, each leaf should contribute the moment of M/n according to the assumptions.

TipLoads

For the bottom most leaf to give M/n,

is angle at which contact force is applied.

Contact between leaves are defined at some points as,

From Assumption (3), for tipLoads to act at the final static position:

For leaf (n-1),

Similarly, tipLoads are calculated and X1's are changed for all leaves.

Preloads on Beams

Beams are preloaded to oppose the tipLoads for leaf to be in equilibrium:

Figure 3. Individual Leaf from Leaf Spring

For Beam i in leaf n,

Action-Reaction Force with Force and Moments as,

and rX is added if the beam is on the front side and

and rX is added if the beam is on the rear side

And also,

and r1X is added if the beam is on the front side

and r1X is added if the beam is on the rear side