Title and abstract

Investigation of the effective elastic constant of different spring combinations

Springs are used in many contraptions worldwide and without them, society would not be able to progress so far. Many contraptions require specific stiffness of spring to run properly and if it’s not done right can lead to many of our daily items to be spoilt. From the springs in pens being too stiff and making you unable to press the button to make the tip come out, to needing stronger springs to lift heavier loads without damaging the spring(s). The purpose of this project is to find out how different combinations of springs (parallel and series) affects the effective elastic constant(stiffness) of spring(s). The concept of F=-kx will be used to find out the effective elastic constant of the springs with F being the force applied, k being the elastic constant and x being the spring extension. A spring’s length is first measured and recorded, then the spring was hung on the stand and weight was hung on it. the length of the stretched spring was then measured and recorded. A graph of the force exerted vs spring extension was plotted. Draw the best fit line and find the gradient of the line to get the effective elastic constant of the different combinations of springs. The results suggested that as more springs were added in series combination, the lower the effective elastic constant of the springs and as more springs were added in parallel combination, the higher the effective elastic constant. However, there were certain limitations that could have resulted in our results were inaccurate, such as an improper ruler, not hooking the weights properly and not being able to read the measurements properly. The method of this experiment can be used to measure the effective elastic constant of all other springs if you use appropriate equipment appropriately. These results can be used to determine whether people should use series or parallel spring combinations in their contraptions such as in disc springs where either series or parallel springs could be used.