Design of Springs Made of Flat Material

Abstract

A technique is presented for the analysis of deflection and stresses in helical compression or tension springs of rectangular cross-section. The technique consists in analyzing the deflection and stresses in a circular plate cut radially. Using the theory of elastic dislocations, a stress system is determined which gives as the resultant over any terminal cross-section, a single force acting along the axis of the plate. If the pitch angle of the spring is neglected, the stresses in a helical spring are obtained. The deflection and stresses are evaluated in terms of the dimensions of the spring and compared with the results of other theories.