Compression Canted Coil Springs for Seals and Other Applications
Posted by handaspring
Compression canted coil springs are a specialized type of spring designed with coils, offering unique advantages in various applications across different industries. These springs are characterized by their ability to provide a consistent and predictable force over a wide range of deflections, making them ideal for applications requiring precise control and reliability.
Material Selection: The process begins with choosing the appropriate material, which can vary from stainless steel and titanium to exotic alloys like Inconel or Hastelloy, depending on the application requirements.
Wire Preparation: The selected material is cut, rolled, and forged to produce a wire or strip that is uniform in size and consistent in shape.
Coiling: The prepared wire or strip is then wound into a tight spiral using a coiling machine. This process can produce single or double helixes, flat or conical shapes, and symmetric or asymmetric designs, tailored to meet specific application needs.
Heat Treatment: After coiling, the spring undergoes heat treatment to enhance its mechanical and physical properties, such as strength, resilience, and fatigue resistance.
Finishing: Finally, the spring may be coated or treated with finishes like plating, anodizing, or painting to protect against corrosion, wear, or other forms of damage, depending on the intended environment of use.
Applications of Compression Canted Coil Springs
Compression canted coil springs find applications in a wide array of industries due to their unique design features:
Aerospace Industry: Used in engines, landing gear, and critical components of high-performance aircraft due to their durability and resistance to vibration.
Medical Field: Employed in implantable devices and medical equipment requiring consistent and reliable force, such as joint replacements and surgical tools.
Automotive Industry: Utilized in suspension systems, steering columns, and other components needing consistent performance for a smooth and stable ride.
Manufacturing Industry: Applied in assembly equipment, production machines, and automation systems to ensure consistent and reliable performance, thereby improving efficiency and productivity.
Products Made Using Canted Coil Springs
Canted coil springs are integral components in several manufactured products:
Seals: Used in high-pressure applications where traditional spring seals would fail, capable of sealing at high pressures due to their high force and robust stability.
Vibration Isolators: Employed to reduce vibrations by isolating machinery and equipment from their environment, dampening shock and reducing vibration transmission.
Orthopedic Devices: Provide support in artificial limbs and other orthopedic devices, offering high accuracy and load-bearing capabilities required in medical applications.
Advantages of Compression Canted Coil Springs
Compression canted coil springs offer several advantages, including:
Predictable Force: Their design ensures a flat load curve upon compression, generating predictable loads throughout a wide deflection range, which is crucial for applications requiring precise control over force application.
Versatility: They can serve multiple purposes in a single application, such as latching, holding, locking, and EMI shielding, simplifying designs by combining mechanical and electrical functionalities without tools, significantly enhancing reliability and efficiency in various industries, including oil & gas, renewable energy, aerospace, defense, fluid power, transportation, semiconductor manufacturing, and medical devices.
Electrical Connectors: Effective in electrical contacts and connectors, reducing procedure time and patient recovery time in medical applications, providing high contact power density with minimal temperature rise and enabling multi-channel connections in medical devices.
EMI/RF Shielding: Ideal for electrical enclosures and data transmission cables, offering multipurpose solutions with highly predictable forces and almost no compression set, simplifying designs through latching, holding, and EMI shielding, and connectors, showcasing their versatility and reliability in various environments, including vacuum conditions, orthopedic implants, and electrical enclosures, and multipoint electrical connectors, offering a reliable solution for sealing in aerospace, automotive, defense, and underwater connectors, showcasing their effectiveness in challenging environments and aggressive media exposure.
In conclusion, compression canted coil springs are highly versatile, serving as energisers for spring-energized seals, mechanical connectors, multi-point electrical connectors, and EMI shielding. They are able to operate in stringent size restrictions, electrical requirements, temperature fluctuations, and aggressive media, supporting design simplification and lightweighting, enhancing power efficiency and increasing uptime across industries, including oil & gas, renewable energy, defence, and semiconductor manufacturing, connectors and EMI shielding.
