Finding the optimal stock spring from optimal spring design characteristics

This paper presents two methods for selecting the best stock spring from within a database. A way of calculating the optimal custom spring design which takes into account the database properties is described and two methods that explore the neighbourhood of the optimal continuous solution are detailed. Two methods for exploring the neighbourhood of the optimal continuous solution are discussed. The first, called the "expanding" method explores the database in successive layers, and stops once a solution has been found which cannot be improved upon. The second method also uses the "expanding" technique but stops once a spring which matches the specifications has been found. The algorithm then performs a "sliding" operator, whereby the immediate neighbourhood of the existing solution is explored. When no better spring can be found, this process stops. Two examples are shown. They demonstrate the effectiveness for our approach in selecting a stock spring without exploring the whole database. The most time-consuming stage is the calculation of the optimum custom-made spring design. Both these methods are particularly useful when applied to large database.