Characteristics
All Springs Are Not Equal®
Smalley Wave Springs offer the unique advantage of space savings when used to replace coil springs. By reducing spring operating height, wave springs also produce a decrease in the spring cavity.
With a smaller assembly size and less material used in the manufacturing process, a cost savings is realized. Wave springs operate as load bearing devices. They take up play and compensate for dimensional variations within assemblies. A virtually unlimited range of forces can be produced whereby loads build either gradually or abruptly to reach a predetermined working height. This establishes a precise spring rate in which load is proportional to deflection.
Functional requirements are necessary for both dynamic and static spring applications. Special performance characteristics are individually built into each spring to satisfy a variety of precise operating conditions. Typically, a wave spring will occupy an extremely small area for the amount of work it performs. The use of this product is demanded, but not limited to tight axial and radial space constraints.
Producte Performance
With their smooth, circular coiled sinusoidal wave form, and rolled round edges of pre-tempered raw material, Smaller's edgewound Wave Springs offer many advantages over die stamped products.
Loads and spring rates are more accurate, more predictable, and may be toleranced better than 50 percent tighter than stampings. The force of a Smalley Wave Spring will increase at a uniform rate throughout most of its available deflection. By any criteria, Smalley Wave Springs offer their users higher dependability and better performance. Since they are produced from full hard, pre-tempered raw material, there is no risk of distorting the spring during a hardening heat treatment. By contrast, subsequent manufacturing procedures for stamped wavy washers can lead to problems such as fatigue cracking and inaccurate or inconsistent loading between springs. All told, the metallurgy, the mechanical properties and the uniform dimensional stability of the Smalley edgewound Wave Spring provide a component for precision quality applications.
Gap and Overlap type wave springs
Conventional gap and overlap type wave springs are used in a wide variety of applications. For short deflections and low-medium forces, they function with precision and dependability.
These two types of Smalley wave springs permit radial expansion or growth in diameter within a cavity, without the binding or hang-up normally associated with die stamped wavy washers. Just as their terms imply, the gap type is split to retain a gap between the ends; while the overlap type has overlapping split ends. Thus, the ends are free to move circumferentially as the spring outside diameter grows during compression.
In an example situation, the O.D. of a gap type wave spring would fit .020 loose per side in a bore. Its l.D. clears a shaft by .010 per side. As the spring is deflected, the O.D. and l.D. grow larger until the O.D. contacts the bore. Continued deflection causes the gap ends to move closer together while the O.D. presses against the bore. An overlap type wave spring permits this type of cycling action in a similar manner.