Smalley Steel Ring Co.

United States

Nested Wave Springs are pre-stacked in parallel from one continuous filament of flat wire. The need to stack individual springs for higher loads is no longer necessary. Nested springs result in a spring rate that increases proportionately to the number of turns. They can exert tremendous forces, yet maintain the precision of a circular-grain wave spring. In many applications, Nested Wave Springs replace Belleville Springs, particularly in cases where a high but accurate force is needed. Nested Wave Springs are available as a custom from Smalley. Springs can be manufactured in from .157" to 120".

An interlaced wave spring is formed from two constituent wave springs of similar thickness, amplitude and frequency. The two constituent wave springs are combined together by interlacing them so that the spring turns of each spring abut each other for substantially the entire length of the interlaced spring. This interlacing effectively increases the thickness of the spring turns of the interlaced spring to thereby provide increased loading and greater fatigue resistance characteristics. Interlaced Wave Springs are available as a custom from Smalley. Smalley engineers are available to assist with spring design.

Crest-to-Crest Wave Springs are pre-stacked in series, decreasing the spring rate proportionally to the number of turns. Uses are typically applications requiring low-medium spring rates and large deflections with low-medium forces. Among the major advantages, this design eliminates the need to keep the wave crests aligned. The need to use a key locating device, or to insert a shim between individual springs is not necessary. Because the spring is integrally formed, the wave peaks hold their configuration.

Conventional Gap and Overlap Type Wave Springs are used in a wide variety of applications. For short deflections and low-medium forces, they function with precision and dependability. These two types of Smalley Wave Springs permit radial expansion or growth in diameter within a cavity, without the binding or hang-up normally associated with die stamped wave washers. Just as their terms imply, the gap type is split to retain a gap between the ends; while the overlap type has overlapping ends. Thus, the ends are free to move circumferentially as the spring outside diameter grows during compression.