C shaped spring

[omartheengineer]

I have a c spring in my design and have calculated the stress for my application and it seems to be within limits. When i test it deforms permanently. Has anyone worked with c springs or could anyone point me in a direction that might have different stress equations that are more real life?

 

[israelkk]

What do you mean by c spring? Is it a c shape made of round wire or a rectangular wire (like a retaing ring)?

What are the spring dimension?
How it is loaded? acrosss the spring diamter or at the open ends?

How much deflection is desired at the diameter or the open ends?

 

[TheTick]

I designed a couple hinges with C-springs for over-center action. I would calculate the deflection and then run a quickie FEA to determine spring rate and max stress.

Stress is dependent on the depth of the "C", material thickness, and total deflection. Spring rate is mostly linear through the whole deflection and varied linearly with the width (twice as wide = twice as strong for same "C" profile).

Are you using the right steel? High strength spring steel has yield in the 210 to 250 ksi range.

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