Sensing leaf spring for axle load monitoring

Nowadays human safety and comfort are the most considerable parameters in designing and manufacturing of a vehicle, that is why every organization ensures the quality and reliability of components used in the vehicle. Leaf spring is also a component of vehicle which plays an important role in human safety and comfort. It acts as a structural member and an integral part of suspension system. Accidents caused by heavy vehicles have been increasing in recent years. This is mainly due to the fact that vehicle overloading results in steering difficulty and long braking distance. Therefore, this work aims to develop an automatic payload measurement for heavy vehicles, so that drivers, police officers and suppliers can monitor vehicle payload while on board the measured vehicle. For the ease of installation, high accuracy, and low cost, this work proposes to paste strain gauges onto each leaf spring in vehicle suspensions, instead of load cells. Based on measured output voltages of bridge circuits in each suspension, the vehicle payload is calculated. Moreover, for promoting the accuracy of calculated payload, this work develops an electronic device able to collect data and transfer them from the sensor to a well-equipped IoT platforms to build a proof-to-concept prototype for the future usage.