Page 1 of 88 SPRING FAILURE & PREVENTION Issue No:INTRODUCTION Issue date:- NOV 2012

Every spring manufacturer will occasionally have experience of springs that fail either by fracture, cracking, setting down or distorting. Such failures could occur during manufacture, testing, assembly or service, but whenever the failure occurs the consequences are always a nuisance, and are potentially catastrophic. Invariably the financial losses incurred as a result of spring failure will be far greater than the actual value of the springs. For instance, late delivery of springs because of manufacturing or testing failures could stop a production line. Failure at the assembly stage is almost certain to halt production, even if only one or two springs out of a large batch fails because no manufacturer would willingly assemble goods that are susceptible to failure. However failure in service can have the most catastrophic consequences. For example, failure of an engine valve spring is very likely to result in the complete destruction of the engine, or failure of a spring on a satellite might render the satellite useless. Springs are almost invariably the highest stressed component in a manufactured item, and so are potentially the most susceptible to failure. Fortunately, nearly all springs are safely designed and seldom fail. Nonetheless, an appreciation of the mechanisms by which springs could fail would be extremely helpful to spring designers and manufacturers, and the purpose of this course is to provide just that. Contained within this course is a directory of the usual appearance of spring failures that will help the interpretation of the reasons for failure. The photographs and text contained herein will assist the attribution of fault, since springs may fail either as a consequence of; sub-standard raw material used in their manufacture insufficient control of spring manufacturing process poor design abuse in testing or service.

INSTITUTE OF SPRING TECHNOLOGY

Henry Street, Sheffield, S3 7EQ, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)114 276 0771 Fax: +44 (0)114 252 7997 E-mail: ist@ist.org.uk www.ist.org.uk

The International Independent Centre of Excellence for Spring Technology

Page 2 of 88 SPRING FAILURE & PREVENTION Issue No:INTRODUCTION Issue date:- NOV 2012

The reasons for spring failure may be assigned to design, raw material production, spring manufacture or use, or can be thought of in terms of the mechanism by which they fail. Statistics compiled by IST on failure investigations carried out in their laboratory over a 12 year period are shown in the two tables below. The following table highlights the underlying reasons for failure, which were established in each instance. Table 1 Reasons for Spring Failure Reason for Failure Defective Raw Material Poor Spring Design Unforeseen Service Conditions/Environment Non Optimum Spring Manufacture Spring Abuse Unknown % of Failures 15 40 17 20 5 3

Re-analysis of above figures according to failure mechanisms provides further useful information as shown below: Table 2 Mechanisms of Failure Mechanism of Failure Fatigue Relaxation Corrosion Embrittlement/Stress Corrosion Cracking Overload/Takes a Set Cracking Wear Not Discovered/Other % of Examinations 55 10 20 15 5 10 3 3

INSTITUTE OF SPRING TECHNOLOGY

Henry Street, Sheffield, S3 7EQ, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)114 276 0771 Fax: +44 (0)114 252 7997 E-mail: ist@ist.org.uk www.ist.org.uk

The International Independent Centre of Excellence for Spring Technology

Page 3 of 88 SPRING FAILURE & PREVENTION Issue No:INTRODUCTION Issue date:- NOV 2012

It will be observed that the analysis on the previous page clearly shows that fatigue is by far the most important mechanism by which springs may fail. Of course, the fatigue mechanism may be brought about by corrosion or wear, and when this occurs the failure is classified in both the appropriate mechanisms. Hence the figures given do not add up to 100%.

The classification on the previous page may be a little misleading in that IST are very frequently asked to diagnose embrittlement failures that are very hard to diagnose without use of sophisticated equipment. Hence the embrittlement / stress corrosion cracking percentage may be a slight overestimate. By a similar argument, the relaxation percentage is an underestimate because such failures are easier to diagnose, and spring users are often tolerant of the imperfect, but continued functioning of a 'relaxed spring'.

The above figures provide useful guidance, but it must be borne in mind that IST are only commissioned to undertake investigations where the failure cause is not obvious, or is in dispute. Hence this analysis is the product of only the difficult investigations, and so must be treated with a little caution.

A final observation from the table is that in about 3% of cases, the failure mechanism could not be fully ascertained often due to post fracture damage. Even in these cases, useful knowledge can be gained during the investigation, short of a full diagnosis of the spring failure mechanism.

It is interesting to look also at the types of spring that fail, as shown on the next page.

INSTITUTE OF SPRING TECHNOLOGY

Henry Street, Sheffield, S3 7EQ, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)114 276 0771 Fax: +44 (0)114 252 7997 E-mail: ist@ist.org.uk www.ist.org.uk

The International Independent Centre of Excellence for Spring Technology

Page 4 of 88 SPRING FAILURE & PREVENTION Issue No:INTRODUCTION Issue date:- NOV 2012

Table 3 Spring Types Spring Type Compression Springs Torsion Springs Hot Formed Extension Springs Clock/Spiral Springs Constant Force Spring Spring Clips (Wireforms) Spring Clips (Strip) Others % of Failures 40 16 12 12 3 2 3 6 6

The only observation that needs to be made about these figures is that the percentage of hot formed spring failures is lower than might have been expected, but in other respects the table reflects the full range of springs made by the industry. In other words, all spring types are susceptible to failure. Another way of looking at these failures is a breakdown of the materials from which the springs were manufactured. Table 4 Material Types Material Oil Tempered Silicon Chromium Hard Drawn Carbon Steel Stainless Steel Hot Forming Materials Others % of Failures 40 25 13 12 10

This table certainly does not reflect the frequency of usage of materials in the spring industry. It shows clearly that the highest strength spring materials are more susceptible to failure than the others; and when the hard drawn carbon steel failures are further classified, it is observed that music wire is frequently implicated in failures, and 17/7PH is the material for nearly half of the stainless steel failures. IST believe that the correct interpretation of these statistics is that it is high operating stresses that cause failures and no material is any more available than others. INSTITUTE OF SPRING TECHNOLOGY
Henry Street, Sheffield, S3 7EQ, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)114 276 0771 Fax: +44 (0)114 252 7997 E-mail: ist@ist.org.uk www.ist.org.uk

The International Independent Centre of Excellence for Spring Technology