Analysis of prismatic springs of non-circular coil shape using finite element method

Abstract

Common helical springs are of circular coil shape requiring equal space in all directions. But there are applications, such as firearms, where springs with non-circular coils are required. In this paper deflection and stress analysis of a spring with rectangular-semi circular coil is presented. Appropriate CAD model is developed in SolidWorks and Finite element analysis is performed in ANSYS Workbench environment. Results show that such springs undergo more deflection compared to a circular coil spring for same coil area, but with more stress developed. Deflections and von-Mises stresses are obtained for different aspect ratios of the said spring. The methodology presented may help the designer to select the right type of the non-circular coil spring for appropriate applications.