As a popular Oil & Gas industry alternative to conventional round-wire compression springs, Crest-to-Crest® Wave Springs can maintain the same force and load specifications, yet occupy up to 50% axial space with lowered and compacted operating heights, free heights and solid heights. This allows for strict space constraints, potential savings in surrounding material costs, or possibly a more powerful spring solution within the same space envelope.
Smalley springs are manufactured by edge-winding a single filament of wire, creating a circumferential grain structure that gives them exceptional strength, dimensional stability and predictable performance characteristics. Moreover, since there is no costly tooling involved, production times are greatly reduced and modifications at prototype stage can be made quickly and easily. With an in-house rolling mill capacity capable of supplying virtually all of the manufacturing requirements, Smalley are able to supply in a wide range of standard materials including Carbon Spring Steel, AISI 17-7, 302 and 316 Stainless Steels as well as exotic alloys such as Inconel, Elgiloy, A286, Beryllium Copper and Phosphor Bronze.
An Interlaced Crest-to-Crest® Wave Spring is formed from two or three constituent wave springs of similar thickness, amplitude and frequency. Each spring is wound together to interlace them, effectively increasing the thickness of the spring turns to provide increased loading and greater fatigue resistance characteristics.
Nested Wave Springs are pre-stacked in parallel from one continuous strip of flat wire. Eliminating the need to stack individual springs for higher loads and improving installation.
Nested springs result in a spring rate that increases proportionately to the number of turns. They can exert tremendous forces, yet maintain the precision of a circular-grain wave spring. In many applications, Nested Wave Springs replace Belleville Springs, particularly in cases where a high but accurate force is needed within a tight radial envelope.
Summary
• No tooling required
• Modification to design is immediate and requires no compromise from the customer
• Greater control of specified loading at stated working heights
• No heat treatment
• Size range is almost infinite from 5mm to over 3000mm
• Wide range of material sections and material types
• Short lead times
For further details and catalogue ranges of single and multi-turn varieties, please visit our website www.tfc.eu.com or contact our specialist team on 01435 866011.
