Spring (device)


A spring is a device consisting of an elastic but largely rigid material bent or molded into a form that can return into shape after being compressed, extended or twisted. Springs can store energy when compressed, when extended, and/or when twisted. In everyday use, the term most often refers to coil springs, but there are many different spring designs. Modern springs are typically manufactured from spring steel. An example of a non-metallic spring is the bow, made traditionally of flexible yew wood, which when drawn stores energy to propel an arrow.
When a conventional spring, without stiffness variability features, is compressed or stretched from its resting position, it exerts an opposing force approximately proportional to its change in length. The rate or spring constant of a spring is the change in the force it exerts, divided by the change in deflection of the spring. That is, it is the gradient of the force versus deflection curve. An extension or compression spring's rate is expressed in units of force divided by distance, for example or N/m or lbf/in. A torsion spring is a spring that works by twisting; when it is twisted about its axis by an angle, it produces a torque proportional to the angle. A torsion spring's rate is in units of torque divided by angle, such as N·m/rad or ft·lbf/degree. The inverse of spring rate is compliance, that is: if a spring has a rate of 10 N/mm, it has a compliance of 0.1 mm/N. The stiffness of springs in parallel is additive, as is the compliance of springs in series.
Springs are made from a variety of elastic materials, the most common being spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after manufacture. Some non-ferrous metals are also used, including phosphor bronze and titanium for parts requiring corrosion resistance, and low-resistance beryllium copper for springs carrying electric current.

History

Simple non-coiled springs have been used throughout human history, e.g. the bow. In the Bronze Age more sophisticated spring devices were used, as shown by the spread of tweezers in many cultures. Ctesibius of Alexandria developed a method for making springs out of an alloy of bronze with an increased proportion of tin, hardened by hammering after it was cast.
Coiled springs appeared early in the 15th century, in door locks. The first spring-powered clocks appeared in that century and evolved into the first large watches by the 16th century.
In 1676 British physicist Robert Hooke postulated Hooke's law, which states that the force a spring exerts is proportional to its extension.
On March 8, 1850, John Evans, Founder of John Evans' Sons, Incorporated, opened his business in New Haven, Connecticut, manufacturing flat springs for carriages and other vehicles, as well as the machinery to manufacture the springs. Evans was a Welsh blacksmith and springmaker who emigrated to the United States in 1847, John Evans' Sons became "America's oldest springmaker" which continues to operate today.

Types

Classification

Springs can be classified depending on how the load force is applied to them.
; Tension/extension spring: The spring is designed to operate with a tension load, so the spring stretches as the load is applied to it.
; Compression spring: Designed to operate with a compression load, so the spring gets shorter as the load is applied to it.
; Torsion spring: Unlike the above types in which the load is an axial force, the load applied to a torsion spring is a torque or twisting force, and the end of the spring rotates through an angle as the load is applied. Often used in torsion bar vehicle suspension systems.file:Torsion-Bar with-load.jpg|thumb|A torsion bar twisted under load
There are many other ways to potentially classify and subclassify springs, such as their shape - coil springs are common, but so are leaf springs, for example. Garter springs are arc springs with a specific arc in mind; both are typically made by bending a coil spring into a position.

Common types

The most common types of spring are:
; Balance spring: Also known as a hairspring. A delicate spiral spring used in watches, galvanometers, and places where electricity must be carried to partially rotating devices such as steering wheels without hindering the rotation.
; Cantilever spring: A flat spring fixed only at one end like a cantilever, while the free-hanging end takes the load.
; Coil spring: Also known as a helical spring. A spring is of two types.
; Hollow tubing spring: Can be either extension springs or compression springs. Hollow tubing is filled with oil and the means of changing hydrostatic pressure inside the tubing such as a membrane or miniature piston etc. to harden or relax the spring, much like it happens with water pressure inside a garden hose. Alternatively tubing's cross-section is chosen of a shape that it changes its area when tubing is subjected to torsional deformation: change of the cross-section area translates into change of tubing's inside volume and the flow of oil in/out of the spring that can be controlled by valve thereby controlling stiffness. There are many other designs of springs of hollow tubing which can change stiffness with any desired frequency, change stiffness by a multiple or move like a linear actuator in addition to its spring qualities.
; Leaf spring: A flat spring used in vehicle suspensions, electrical switches, and bows.
; V-spring: Used in antique firearm mechanisms such as the wheellock, flintlock and percussion cap locks. Also used as a door-lock spring, such as in antique door latch mechanisms.

Other types

Other types include:
; Belleville washer: A disc shaped spring commonly used to apply tension to a bolt
; Constant-force spring: A tightly rolled ribbon that exerts a nearly constant force as it is unrolled
; Gas spring: A volume of compressed gas.
; Ideal spring: An idealised perfect spring with no weight, mass, damping losses, or limits, a concept used in physics. The force an ideal spring would exert is exactly proportional to its extension or compression.
; Mainspring: A spiral ribbon-shaped spring used as a power store of clockwork mechanisms: watches, clocks, music boxes, windup toys, and mechanically powered flashlights
; Negator spring: A thin metal band slightly concave in cross-section. When coiled it adopts a flat cross-section but when unrolled it returns to its former curve, thus producing a constant force throughout the displacement and negating any tendency to re-wind. The most common application is the retracting steel tape rule.
; Progressive rate coil springs: A coil spring with a variable rate, usually achieved by having unequal distance between turns so that as the spring is compressed one or more coils rests against its neighbour.
; Rubber band: A tension spring where energy is stored by stretching the material.
; Spring washer: Used to apply a constant tensile force along the axis of a fastener.
; Wave spring: various types of spring made compact by using waves to give a spring effect.

Physics

Hooke's law

An ideal spring acts in accordance with Hooke's law, which states that the force with which the spring pushes back is linearly proportional to the distance from its equilibrium length:
where
Most real springs approximately follow Hooke's law if not stretched or compressed beyond their elastic limit.
Coil springs and other common springs typically obey Hooke's law. There are useful springs that don't: springs based on beam bending can, for example, produce forces that vary nonlinearly with displacement.
If made with constant pitch, conical springs have a variable rate. However, a conical spring can be made to have a constant rate by creating the spring with a variable pitch. A larger pitch in the larger-diameter coils and a smaller pitch in the smaller-diameter coils forces the spring to collapse or extend all the coils at the same rate when deformed.

Simple harmonic motion

Since force is equal to mass, m, times acceleration, a, the force equation for a spring obeying 's law looks like:
The mass of the spring is small in comparison to the mass of the attached mass and is ignored. Since acceleration is simply the second derivative of x with respect to time,
This is a second order linear differential equation for the displacement as a function of time. Rearranging:
the solution of which is the sum of a sine and cosine:
and are arbitrary constants that may be found by considering the initial displacement and velocity of the mass. The graph of this function with is displayed in the image on the right.

Energy dynamics

In simple harmonic motion of a spring-mass system, energy will fluctuate between kinetic energy and potential energy, but the total energy of the system remains the same. A spring that obeys Hooke's law with spring constant k will have a total system energy E of:
Here, A is the amplitude of the wave-like motion that is produced by the oscillating behavior of the spring.
The potential energy U of such a system can be determined through the spring constant k and its displacement x:
The kinetic energy K of an object in simple harmonic motion can be found using the mass of the attached object m and the velocity at which the object oscillates v:
Since there is no energy loss in such a system, energy is always conserved and thus:

Frequency & period

The angular frequency ω of an object in simple harmonic motion, given in radians per second, is found using the spring constant k and the mass of the oscillating object m:
The period T, the amount of time for the spring-mass system to complete one full cycle, of such harmonic motion is given by:
The frequency f, the number of oscillations per unit time, of something in simple harmonic motion is found by taking the inverse of the period: