Gas Spring Design

[Etienne Levic]

SpringDesign & Manufacturing is built on our commitment to superior quality, reliable customer service and rapid response technical support. We have over 35 years of experience in the spring industry, and we bring that knowledge to every product.

Our staff of engineers can assist in every manufacturing step. From prototype fabrication and development, to product launch and production. Our expert technical knowledge covers a wide variety of springs, including wire forms and assemblies for many different industries.

There are several types of compression spring ends types. The most popular ends are closed and squared ends. The other end types provided on our compression spring calculator are closed and grounds ends, double closed ends, and open ends. Changing the end types will affect your spring in stability and even force. This is because changing the end type and keeping the active coils the same will affect the total coil count or solid height. Affecting the coil count could result in force changes as well as specified on the later provided force chart.

kum'pr[sh]un spri[ng] A compression spring is a mechanical device in the shape of a helix made from spring wire. It is used to store or release energy. It can also absorb shock or maintain a force between two surfaces.

Compression springs are coil springs that resist a compressive force applied axially. Compression springs or coil springs have a spring constant and may be cylindrical springs, conical springs, tapered , concave or convex in shape. Compression springs are linear and thus have the same rate per inch throughout the entire spring. You can have large compression springs, heavy duty compression springs, conical compression spring, small compression springs, or even micro compression springs. Coil compression springs are wound in a helix usually out of round wire. The changing of compression spring ends, direction of the helix, material, and finish all allow a compression spring to meet a wide variety of special industrial needs. Coil springs can be manufactured to very tight tolerances, this allows the coil spring to precisely fit in a hole or around a shaft. A digital load tester, or coil spring compression tester can be used to accurately measure the specific load points in your metal spring. The possibilities are almost endless because there are so many applications for metal springs.

Compression springs can accomplish many types of applications such as pushing or twisting, thus allowing you to achieve numerous results. Compression springs offer resistance to linear compressing forces (push) and are in fact one of the most efficient energy storage devices available. A ballpoint pen is an excellent example of how small compression springs work. The small spring will compress when the pen is clicked and then the small spring will return to it's original position. Other uses include vibration dampening and high temperature applications.

Compression spring ends are usually closed and square. These ends can also be closed and ground, or have open ends. Furthermore a compression spring can have hooks on one end or both ends so as to fasten it to your particular assembly. The ends of compression spring can also be close wound for a certain number of coils on the ends permitting the spring to remain in a vertical position. The squareness influences how the axis force produced by the spring can be transferred to adjacent parts. Another application includes being able to thread a closed end coil spring onto a threaded shaft for fastening purposes. Other end configuration examples are reduced end diameters like a barrel spring on a bicycle seat. Springs can have dual diameters as well as triple diameters for achieving different assembly situations.

1. Know where your spring is going. Does it need to fit over a shaft, thus the inner diameter is a fixed measurement. Does it need to go in a hole, thus the outer diameter is a fixed measurement. Does it need to fit into a space that is a certain depth or width, thus the spring would have a maximum free length.

2. What is the spring's environment. This is necessary because certain materials are best for certain designs. For example stainless steel is good for salt water or medical applications and Inconel is best for springs being used at very high temperatures.

4. Know how far your spring needs to travel to complete the task in number 3. You can calculate the maximum spring compression of your compression spring on our Free Online Maximum Spring Compression Calculator.

Closed and Ground Ends: means an additional grinding operation has to be applied to the closed end configuration. Grinding removes material from the spring's end coils to create a flat surface so the spring can stand up straight vertically.

Student teams will deliver in-person technical presentations and demonstrations in person at Trabant University Center. See Design Category below for detailed presentation schedule and room locations, and click here for maps of Trabant First Floor and Second Floor. All presentations are open to the public.

Mechanical Engineering Junior Design is a core mechanical engineering course sequence that spans the fall (MEEG301) and spring terms (MEEG304). These courses include a year-long real-world manufacturing and automation challenge posed by two local industry sponsors, Norwalt Design and Omega Design. Teams of approximately 10 junior year students design, manufacture, and test the performance of a custom-designed autonomous bottle fill station. This spring semester showcase features end-of-project presentations and prototype demonstrations for this year-long project.

MEEG482/682: Clinical Biomechanics is an upper-division/graduate level course taken by students interested in biomechanics applications in orthopaedics and human movement sciences. Student teams will be presenting their course research projects, which involve design and execution of human motion analysis studies.

An early stage prototype of this required manually adjustable transmission has been developed. The system functions using a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and has successfully demonstrated the proof of concept. This independent study will focus on further development of the existing CVT system into a fully functional transmission system that can be directly used by Stanley Black & Decker.

The mTRAX Planetary Labs group at NASA Glenn Research Center is working on the development of flexible, non-pneumatic off-world tires as well as working with contractors who plan to deliver vehicles that include novel flexible tire designs. A critical characteristic in design and performance evaluation of a flexible tire is its contact footprint on the terrain surface. The pressure distribution and physical shape of the footprint affect tractive performance of the tire and are therefore critical to measure in a tire prototype. A system capable of measuring the physical shape and pressure distribution of a flexible tire contact on variable terrain, like planetary regolith or sand, would provide a great deal of insight into how a given tire performs as compared to performance estimated during design stages.

The objective of this project is to deliver a first prototype of a measurement system that is capable of measuring the various performance parameters while a notional tire is under load on sandy terrain in a laboratory, single-wheel test assembly (like TREC or similar).

Graduate students in this course compete in an additive manufacturing heat sink challenge. Over the course of this semester, students design high performance metal heatsinks that balance the need for low maximum temperatures and minimum material usage/cost. Students must use a filament-based additive manufacturing process that makes use of green part debinding/sintering to produce all metal parts.

The Design Advisory Panel (DAP) is established by the Downtown Silver Spring Overlay Zone. The primary goal of the DAP is to provide advice and recommendations that will improve the quality of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture and increase design excellence overall in downtown Silver Spring. The DAP will be guided by the Silver Spring Downtown and Adjacent Communities (SSDAC) Plan and the related Design Guidelines.

While the DAP meetings are primarily for panel members to consider and comment on proposed developments, meetings should be collaborative, and input from developers, their consultants, and members of the public is encouraged. Because panel members are volunteers, however, the DAP is not expected to meet for more than one hour on any single project.

Members of the public who wish to participate in a DAP meeting should notify the DAP Liaison before the meeting. Those who have not notified the DAP Liaison in advance may sign up to participate the day of the meeting. Citizens will be invited to participate in the order in which they sign up. In certain cases, there may not be sufficient time for all interested citizens to participate. Members of the public who wish to ensure their comments are considered by the DAP should submit them in writing to the DAP Liaison no later than twenty-four hours before the DAP meeting. Any written comments submitted to the DAP will also be sent to the Planning Board before the Board meets to consider the proposed development.

Although DAP meetings are intended to be informal, it may be necessary in certain cases, such as meetings with many interested citizens, for the DAP to impose equitable time limits on public comments or other reasonable rules of order. When possible, the DAP Liaison will announce time limits at the start of the meeting.

DAP Meeting materials, including agenda and development application submission forms, will be posted one week prior to the meeting. Meetings notes and recordings will be posted generally within one week of the DAP meeting.

When designing a spring, if possible, one spring should be designed so that the conditions can be met,

but if the design conditions simply cannot be met by one spring, sometimes the design conditions are met by combining multiple springs.

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