CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

Springs are used in a variety of mechanical applications to store potential energy. In this chapter we shall examine some of the common spring configurations and their operating characteristics.
Perhaps the two most common kinds of springs are the coil and leaf types. Of these two types, the coil spring is probably the most often encountered. Coil springs are formed by wrapping a round or square wire into a helical coil. Steel is the most commonly used material, but alloys of brass, bronze, copper and others are also used. The most popular coil spring types are extension, compression and torsion springs. An example of each of these is shown in Figure 10-1. In a typical application, this type extends or stretches when a load is applied to it.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
In general, springs may be classified as wire springs flat springs special-shaped springs Wire springs include helical springs of round or square wire, made to resist and deflect under tensile, compressive, or torsional loads. Flat springs include cantilever and elliptical types and flat spring washers, usually called Belleville springs.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Compression Springs The four types of ends generally used for compression springs are illustrated in Fig. 102. A spring with plain ends has a noninterrupted helicoid; the ends are the same as if a long spring had been cut into sections. A spring with plain ends that are squared or closed is obtained by deforming the ends to a zero-degree helix angle. Springs should always be both squared and ground for important applications, because a better transfer of the load is obtained.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Extension Springs Extension springs differ from compression springs in that they carry tensile loading, they require some means of transferring the load from the support to the body of the spring. The load transfer can be done with a threaded plug or a hook; both of these add to the cost of the finished product, and so one of the methods shown in Fig. 106 is usually employed.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Helical Coil Torsion Springs When a helical coil spring is subjected to end torsion, it is called a torsion spring. It is usually close-wound, as is a helical coil extension spring. There are single-bodied and double-bodied types as depicted in Fig. 109. As shown in the figure, torsion springs have ends configured to apply torsion to the coil body in a convenient manner, with short hook, hinged straight offset, straight torsion, and special ends. The ends ultimately connect a force at a distance from the coil axis to apply a torque. The most frequently encountered (and least expensive) end is the straight torsion end.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Belleville Springs The inset of Fig. 1012 shows a coned-disk spring, commonly called a Belleville spring. Aside from the obvious advantage that a Belleville spring occupies only a small space, variation in the h/t ratio will produce a wide variety of load-deflection curve shapes, as illustrated in Fig. 1012.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Belleville Springs For example, using an h/t ratio of 2.83 or larger gives an S curve that might be useful for snap-acting mechanisms. A reduction of the ratio to a value between 1.41 and 2.1 causes the central portion of the curve to become horizontal, which means that the load is constant over a considerable deflection range. A higher load for a given deflection may be obtained by nesting, that is, by stacking the springs in parallel. On the other hand, stacking in series provides a larger deflection for the same load, but in this case there is danger of instability.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Miscellaneous Springs The extension spring shown in Fig. 1013 is made of slightly curved strip steel, not flat, so that the force required to uncoil it remains constant; thus it is called a constant force spring. This is equivalent to a zero spring rate.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Miscellaneous Springs A volute spring, shown in Fig. 1014a, is a wide, thin strip, or flat, of material wound on the flat so that the coils fit inside one another. Since the coils do not stack, the solid height of the spring is the width of the strip. A variable-spring scale, in a compression volute spring, is obtained by permitting the coils to contact the support. Thus, as the deflection increases, the number of active coils decreases. The volute spring has another important advantage that cannot be obtained with round-wire springs: if the coils are wound so as to contact or slide on one another during action, the sliding friction will serve to damp out vibrations or other unwanted transient disturbances. Flat stock is used for a great variety of springs

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Miscellaneous Springs A conical spring, as the name implies, is a coil spring wound in the shape of a cone (see Prob. 1022). Most conical springs are compression springs and are wound with round wire. But a volute spring is a conical spring too. Probably the principal advantage of this type of spring is that it can be wound so that the solid height is only a single wire diameter.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Critical Frequency of Helical Springs If a wave is created by a disturbance at one end of a swimming pool, this wave will travel down the length of the pool, be reflected back at the far end, and continue in this back-and-forth motion until it is finally damped out. The same effect occurs in helical springs, and it is called spring surge. If one end of a compression spring is held against a flat surface and the other end is disturbed, a compression wave is created that travels back and forth from one end to the other exactly like the swimming-pool wave. The harmonic, natural, frequencies for a spring placed between two flat and parallel plates, in radians per second, are

where the fundamental frequency is found for m = 1, the second harmonic for m = 2, and so on. We are usually interested in the frequency in cycles per second; since = 2 f , we have, for the fundamental frequency in hertz, assuming the spring ends are always in contact with the plates.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS
Critical Frequency of Helical Springs Wolford and Smith show that the frequency is

where the spring has one end against a flat plate and the other end free.

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS

CHAPTER 9: SPRINGS