Accuracy for Alcohol Bottles
In today’s computer age, a compression spring can be designed to amazingly accurate standards and the “what if” approach is made easy by the computer programs in existence. One of our more accurate applications was for a bottling machine which was used for alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is so expensive that the manufacturer did not want to give you even one extra drink, so the spring had to be designed so that when the weight of the alcoholic beverage got to a pre-destined amount that the machine would shut off, move the bottle down the assembly line and then begin filling the next bottle.
Let us use this example to go through some of the nuances of a compression spring. First of all, the spring has to fit in the machine. That means the compression spring must have a specified free length (a length without any force on it). Then as the bottle fills with alcohol, the spring must compress (at a constant spring rate). Then when the spring reaches a certain point (load at a height) it must initiate another action (the alcohol stops). Then as the bottle moves on the load is alleviated and the spring returns to its initial height.
In order to make all of this happen, the spring had to be designed to give the desired result with its many parameter. The free length, spring diameter, and wire diameter all had to be chosen so that when a certain amount of alcohol was in the bottle, the spring would compress to a pre-determined height. The spring material had to be chosen so that if any alcohol spilled on it, it would not oxidize. The number of coils had to be such that the spring could compress down to the predetermined height. And the ends had to be closed and ground so that the spring would stand straight and not look like the leaning tower of pizza. This then becomes a fairly straightforward indication of compression spring applications.
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