Real life examples of spring energy storage

[Ryan_m_b]

Tonight I've had a deceptively simple question that I've found maddeningly difficult to get an answer to. What I'm looking for is a list of springs with information on how much they can be compressed and how much energy they store. E.g.:

Steel spring from company A has dimensions X, Y, Z and can be compressed U% holding Vj of energy.

Instead though all I can find is explanations of Hooke's law and hypothetical examples. Most sites seem to assume that the person asking has a spring they want to rest and so can just figure out energy storage by piling weights on and working through Hooke's law. Whereas I'm just looking for a simple set of figures.

Any pointers to such a fact sheet would be greatly appreciated!

 

[berkeman]

Look at garage door opener counterweight springs?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Look at garage door opener counterweight springs?

Do you mean google counterweight springs or go to a garage and observe on directly? I can do (and in another window currently are doing) the former but I live in a block of flats without a garage so the latter would be difficult.

 

[berkeman]

I'd try garage door installation websites, and maybe wikipedia. Let me have a look at wikipedia...

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I'd try garage door installation websites, and maybe wikipedia. Let me have a look at wikipedia...

Working my way through this one at the moment. Cheers for the help

 

[berkeman]

Wikipedia wasn't much help, but Googleing for garage door opener spring specifications gave some interesting hits. Here's one with some technical specs:

http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instructions/how-to-measure-torsion-springs.php

Although I don't see the specific tension listed. But you can probably infer that by the weight of a typical garage door...

 

[berkeman]

More info: http://ddmgaragedoors.com/springs/standard-torsion-springs.php

YouTube video:

Hope some of that helps.

As for other springs and specs, maybe look into valve springs in engines? There should be some good technical info on them available.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Will do! Thanks.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Valve springs seem to have come up trumps, found http://dairally.net/daihard/chas/MiscCalculators/DaiValveSpring.htm that has lots of information and calculators. Seems enough to satisfy my curiosity for now.

 

[berkeman]

Are trumps good or bad?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Lol sorry, to come up trumps is to be successful/provide a solution

 

[AlephZero]

Another example would be the gas spring in your office chair (assuming you have an office). The energy stored = mgh where m is your mass and h is the distance it is compressed.

 

[Lok]

A mechanical watch.

 

[Lok]

You could try a Spring calculator of some site that sells them, as they do give info on their constant and max travel.

E.g. http://www.acxesspring.com/spring-calculator.html

 

[Baluncore]

Fundamentally, energy is stored in the elastic material. Look at a stress – strain diagram, identify the extent of elastic deformation, before plastic deformation or failure. You then know the maximum energy storage possible for a particular mass of that material. The shape of the spring you make from that material will determine the particular spring constant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooke's_law#General_application_to_elastic_materials

 

[CWatters]

What size springs? This site allows you to specify the diameter, relaxed length and spring constant (Rate). I put some numbers in and it came up with 17,000 to choose from and they were just the compression springs. They also do extension, torsion and conical springs.

https://www.thespringstore.com/tech-info/off-the-shelf-springs.html?category_id=3#

It doesn't give you the energy storage but that can be easily calculated from the rate (k) and the suggested maximum deflection (x).

E = 0.5kx²