Tutorial 11 - Design of a Spring for a Pogo Stick

Goals:
Design a compression spring.
Analyze a spring with respect to forces and fatigue.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Problem Statement
Given: A pogo stick is a common toy, where the child can jump with
the aid of a compression spring contained within a telescoping leg.
Design a compression coil spring for a pogo stick made of hard drawn
wire with ends squared and ground. The spring should have a preload
of 50 N with a length of 300 mm and exert a force of 500 N when
compressed an additional 200 mm. The largest permissible outer coil
diameter is 50 mm. Use a safety factor of at least 2.0 for torsional
yielding and 1.0 for endurance limit fatigue for the worst-case
scenario.
Find: Design a helical compression spring for the pogo stick.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Solution Outline
General Comments
Spring Force and Stress Analysis
Wire Strength Determination
Wire Diameter Selection
Determination of Active Coils
Concluding Remarks

Note: The approach presented is only one of many approaches which can be pursued.
Although the indicated steps are in a logical order, they are not to be considered the
essential order.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

General Comments
A pogo stick is a very common toy. Children will play with this toy for extended periods
of time, so the spring should be designed for infinite life. The pogo stick is designed
with the spring inside a retainer, so neither lateral buckling of the spring nor compression
to its solid length are issues which must be considered, as long as the spring is able to
compress sufficiently. Note that there is no design reason for choosing a smaller
diameter spring than the maximum allowed by the geometry of the pogo stick.
Therefore, the outer diameter will be taken as 0.050 m.

A real design problem would allow comparisons of different spring materials, as well as
other design parameters. However, the problem has been simplified because of space
limitations.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Calculate the mean load and alternating

component of load, and the mean shear stress
and shear stress amplitude as functions of wire
diameter.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Spring Force and Stress Analysis

The mean force on the spring is 275 N.
The force amplitude is 225 N.
The shear stress amplitude is

0.050m d K
w
a 573N

d3

The mean shear stress is

0.050m d K
w
m 700N

d3

Where the Wahl correction factor is a function of d only.

See the Next Slide for details of the analysis!

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Analysis Details
The worst case is for a very large and exuberant child, where the maximum load with each
bounce will be the maximum load permissible by the spring retainer, or 500 N. When the pogo
stick is in the air, the load on the spring reaches its minimum value of 50 N. Thus, for the worst
case analysis, the mean and alternating loads are, from Eq. (16.22) and (16.23)
Pa

Pmax Pmin 500N 50N

225N
2
2

Pmax Pmin 500N 50N

275N
2
2
Therefore the mean and alternating stresses are
0.050m d K
8DK wPa 8 0.050m d K w 225N
w

573
N

d3
d3
d3

0.050m d K
8DKwPm 8 0.050m d K w 275N
w

700
N

d3
d3
d3

Pm

Where Kw is the Wahl correction factor given by Eq. (16.12) as a function of d as:
0.050m d
4
1
d
4C 1 0.615
0.615

Kw

0.050m d
4C 4
C
0.050m d
4

4
d
d

1998 McGraw-Hill
Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Calculate the ultimate tensile strength, the

shear yield strength and the modified
endurance limit for the spring material. Express
these values as a function of the wire diameter
where necessary.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Wire Strength Determination

The modified endurance limit in shear for the wire is Sse=310 MPa.
The ultimate strength of the wire is
Sut

1750MPa
d0.192

The shear yield strength of the wire is

Ssy

700MPa
d0.192

See the Next Slide for details of the analysis!

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Analysis Details
The simplest value to obtain is the endurance limit in shear for the wire. Equation
(16.29) gives the endurance limit for wires, and assuming a 50% reliability is
acceptable, the modified endurance limit in shear for the wire is 310 MPa. Note that
here the 50% reliability is certainly going to be sufficient, since the worst case
loading being considered will be applied only extremely rarely.

The ultimate strength of the wire is given by Equation (16.21) and data for harddrawn wire from Table 16.2 as:
Sut

Ap
dm

1750
MPa
d0.192

The shear yield strength is approximately, from Eq. (16.3):

Ssy 0.40Sut

1998 McGraw-Hill

700MPa
d0.192
Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Calculate the safety factor as a function of wire

diameter for both endurance limit fatigue and
torsional yielding. Pick a wire diameter for the
spring.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Wire Diameter Selection

Based on torsional yielding, the wire diameter should be around 5.8 mm.
Based on endurance limit fatigue, the wire diameter should be around
5.1 mm.

Therefore, a wire diameter of 6.0 is selected.

See the Next Slide for details of the analysis!

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Analysis Details

The safety factor for torsional yielding is given by equation (16.27) as:
ns

Ssy

am

And for endurance limit fatigue, the safety factor is given by (16.26) as:
S
ns se
a

Both the numerator and denominator are functions of d, and have been calculated
previously. Two solution approaches are possible: one can start considering wire
diameters and plug into the equations generated so far and calculate safety factors
accordingly. Or, using the specified safety factors, one can solve for the diameter.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Analysis Details (cont.)

While this problem can be done manually, a computer is of great assistance here. The following
results can be shown:
a
m
d
ns(torsional
ns(endurance
mm
yielding)
limitfatigue)
MPa
MPa
1.0
28,860
35,280
001
001
2.0
3638
4446
0.08
0.07
3.0
1087
1330
0.28
0.23
4.0
463
566
0.67
0.52
5.0
240
293
1.29
0.96
5.5
181
221
1.71
1.25
6.0
140
171
2.21
1.59
7.0
89.4
109
3.46
2.42
8.0
60.8
74.3
5.09
3.47

Or, to meet the safety factors exactly, one needs wire diameters of 5.8 mm or 5.1 mm for torsional
yielding and endurance limit fatigue, respectively. Therefore, a spring diameter of 6 mm is selected.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Calculate the spring index and, from this, the

number of active coils and an end condition.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Determination of Active Coils

66 active coils are needed. The following total coils are needed based on
an end condition:

EndCondition
Plain
Plainandground
Squaredorclosed
Squaredandground

Na
66
67
68
68

See the Next Slide for details of the analysis!

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Analysis Details
The spring index, from the given force and deflection data, is k=F/d = 450N/0.20 m =
2250 N/m. From Equation (16.19):
k 2250N/m

Gd

0.5
3

8C Na 1

C 2

Using d=0.006 m, G=79.3 GPa (converted from MPsi given in Table 16.1), C=7.33,
and solving for Na gives Na=66 coils. Referring to Table 16.3, the active coils are as
follows:
EndCondition
Plain
Plainandground
Squaredorclosed
Squaredandground

1998 McGraw-Hill

Na
66
67
68
68

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid

Concluding Remarks
The spring selected is suitable for the application. Certainly a sufficient safety
factor is attained, but also the solid length is somewhere around 400 mm,
certainly smaller than the length of the pogo stick retainer.

Although the safety factors seem low, it should again be realized that the
maximum loading is limited by the retainer design, so that a rather small safety
factor is certainly reasonable. Also, the worst case design analyzed is,
hopefully, not the normal operating condition.

1998 McGraw-Hill

Hamrock, Jacobson and Schmid