The automobile industry has shown an increased interest in the use of composite leaf springs due to their high strength to weight ratio. The introduction of composite materials has made it possible to reduce the weight of the leaf spring without any reduction in load carrying capacity and stiffness. In this paper, the results of research on fatigue life of composite (Glass Fiber Reinforced plastic – GFRP) leaf springs are presented. Composite springs were designed in such a way that they could replace steel springs in a van.

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The paper presents the possibility of using polymeric materials in the automotive industry. Some of the requirements for materials have been discussed and the possibilities of a significant increase in strength of the materials by the use of reinforcements have been indicated. Numerous examples of applications of reinforced plastics as automotive parts have been presented. Some of the latest technologies that enable the production of automotive parts from reinforced plastics, including hybrid structures, have been described.

The presented paper describes characteristic entities in PhotoStress method -isoclinic fringes, singular points, isostatic lines, and isochromatic fringes. These entities are used in PhotoStress method to visualise and quantify deformation and stress fields of various photoelastically coated structural elements.

The paper presents an analysis of the stress state in a sandwich open conical shells during of stability loss. The shells under consideration consist of a lightweight core layer and two face-layers which are load-carrying. The thickness of those faces is assumed to be equal, and the thickness of the core is about 80% of the whole shell thickness. The load carrying faces are made of isotropic, compressible, work-hardening materials. The core layer is assumed to be elastic, incompressible in the normal z direction and it resists transverse shear only. The shell under consideration is loaded by lateral pressure and longitudinal force. Deformation of the shells within the plastic range is possible before buckling. In order to determine the stress state which occurs during stability loss, the stability equations have to be derived. With respect to this research, the constitutive relations of the Nadai-Hencky deformation theory, alongside the HMH (Huber-Mises-Hencky) yield condition, are accepted in the analysis.