How Are Coil Springs Manufactured?
It’s safe to say that the average person, wherever they are in the world, interacts with mechanical coil springs every day as they go about their regular routines. Springs are ubiquitous in our lives, vital components in everything from mattresses to computer keyboards and beyond. While we’re all familiar with what springs look like, many might not know how these useful devices are made.
Although springs come in slight variations, the manufacturing process follows similar lines – winding, heat treatment, and grinding before a final finish is applied. Let’s take a closer look at these steps.
Winding
The plain wire will first be fed into a CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine that straightens it out before rollers pull it into a guiding mechanism. The wire then be guided into coiling, bending, or forming points. CNC operators will feed the wire into bending points to create wire forms. The wire will be fed into a forming or coiling point array if you want to produce compression springs, torsion springs, extension springs, or certain wire forms.
The winding process is the spring-making process’s most involved and complex part. CNC machines can create an almost unlimited number of bends, loops, and radii, depending on the arrangement of the coiling points.
Heat Treatment
It will undergo heat treatment to ensure that the newly-formed spring retains its shape or memory. This involves heating the springs to a certain temperature for a specific time so that it does not deform when placed under stress. Modern spring manufacturers carry out heat treatment using ovens.
The springs will be carried through these ovens on conveyor belts moving at a calculated speed. Depending on the type and size of the spring, this will keep the springs under heat for the appropriate time.
Grinding
After the springs have cooled down, some spring designs need to have their ends ground flat so they can stand vertically without toppling over. This done using a spring grinder comprising a set of horizontal grinding wheels. . After this, they deposited in a receiving box.
Finishing
At the end of the manufacturing process, many springs are coated or plated to guard against corrosion, enhance their aesthetic appeal, or give them additional strength. There are different types of finishing processes in common use in spring manufacturing. These are;
- Powder Coating: Here, hot-drawn springs (springs that have undergone heat treatment) are taken through a spray machine that applies a layer of paint onto the springs.
- Shot Peening: This type of finish is applied to cold-worked springs. It involves shooting spherical balls at the formed wire, causing compression dimples that develop into compression layers, which act like protective armor. This toughened layer will protect the spring from cracking, corrosion, and fatigue.
- Plating: This involves applying a thin layer of another metal onto the spring through a process known as electroplating, which involves using electrical currents and chemicals to apply the plating metal permanently onto the spring. Plating metals vary depending on the manufacturer’s requirements and may include gold, cadmium, nickel, copper, and more.
Final Thoughts
Many types of springs manufactured today and are used in all manner of devices, machines, and applications. As with all kinds of manufacturing products, the quality of materials and the standard of manufacture will determine the type of spring produced.
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