New Uses for Compression Spring Assemblies

OVERVIEW

PJ Wallbank Springs, a global leader in spring assembly technology and the Seeker for this Wazoku Crowd Challenge, is seeking new uses and applications for its compression spring assemblies. Proposals should be supported with a strong use case stating potential benefits of spring assemblies versus the technology currently used for the application.

Figure 1. Typical compression spring assembly.

Compression spring assemblies, illustrated in Figure 1, typically consist of multiple compression springs and can be produced in a wide range of sizes, spring loads, and spring rates. They have significant advantages in terms of performance, cost, and installation over single compression springs and other spring types such as wave springs and disc springs.

Historically, the primary application for these spring assemblies has been as “clutch return spring packs” in vehicle automatic transmissions to disengage the piston within clutches as the vehicle changes gears, but PJ Wallbank Springs envisions potential use cases far beyond transmissions. 

PJ Wallbank Springs is particularly interested to engage Solvers to identify and detail new applications for their compression spring assembly technology in any applicable field or industry beyond automotive transmissions.

PJ Wallbank Springs has proficiency and technical expertise in the precise placement, arrangement, and attachment of compression springs after the spring is formed/produced, and as another opportunity is also very interested in Solver’s proposals about other applications to which this expertise could be applied. These solutions could look quite different to the current compression spring assemblies, but ideally need to leverage the current know how/capability of the organization.

 

This Prize Challenge has a special award structure.

By taking part you are granting PJ Wallbank Springs a right to use (but not own) your submitted information, provided that PJ Wallbank Springs pays at least $10,000 in awards and decides the award winners within 45 days from the start of evaluation, otherwise they lose this right of use.

This Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted and the best solution(s) have the opportunity to win awards from $2,500 to $20,000 for meeting enough of the requirements criteria. There is no assignment of IP Rights with this Challenge unless the Option below is exercised.

The Option: PJ Wallbank Springs will also have a 60-day option to acquire exclusive rights for solutions in Awarded proposals in return for a payment equal to $15,000.

This one-time payment if exercised, is in addition to the awards stated above. PJ Wallbank Springs can exercise this option within 60 days subsequent to the notification to Solvers that they have been selected as an awarded Solver.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on January 28th, 2025.

- Login or register your interest to start solving!

 

ABOUT THE SEEKER & ELIGIBILITY

PJ Wallbank Springs is a global leader in spring assembly. We are a people- and impact-focused organization that specializes in application of spring assemblies. Our spring pack assemblies impact millions of lives daily. PJ Wallbank Springs helps manufacturers deliver high-quality, reliable products by combining advanced engineering with proprietary manufacturing processes.

Employees of ­­­­PJ Wallbank Springs and Edison Manufacturing and Engineering are ineligible to receive an award for this Challenge.

Find out more about participation in Wazoku Crowd Challenges.

 

THE CHALLENGE

Background

Compression springs have a multitude of uses and can be found in almost any type of device. Compression spring functions include, but are not limited to, the following:

Table 1.

Function	Description
Energy storage	To store energy
Constant pressure application	To force a component to maintain contact with another component
Variable, spacing/positioning	To return a component to its original position after displacement
Shock absorption	To reduce shock or impact
Vibration isolation	To limit the impact of vibration
Dynamic alignment	To permit freedom of movement between aligned components without disengaging them

PJ Wallbank Springs produces compression spring assemblies which consist of multiple compression springs in parallel typically attached to metal stampings. Historically, these have been utilized as circular “clutch packs” which are used to maintain a compressive force within the clutch of an automatic transmission between gear changes. They exhibit significant benefits over competing technologies such as single compression springs, wave springs, and disc springs. These benefits include:

Performance Benefits 

Safety

Spring assemblies have built in redundancy against failure. Multiple springs are used in parallel, minimizing the impact of any single spring failure. This allows rare spring failures to take place without catastrophic consequences for the component or system utilizing the spring assembly.  

Load Capacity

Spring assemblies provide high levels of load capacity and excellent fatigue life performance within the available axial space. 

Right-Sized Axial Travel

Spring assemblies can exert high levels of axial force within a relatively small axial space claim. Additionally, when needed, spring assemblies retain the ability to provide load over significant axial travel distances. This makes spring assemblies a strong option when axial travel is required to minimize frictional forces, account for deflection, or dissipate energy.

Right-Sized Radial Space Requirements

If required, spring assemblies can absorb high amounts of force within a relatively tight axial space claim without requiring outsized radial space. 

Uniform Loading

Spring assemblies provide distributed force around an axial mating component, enabling built in alignment capabilities. Additionally, given the strong load capabilities of spring assemblies and the low degrees of friction and hysteresis experienced during operation, spring assemblies operate within a highly uniform portion of the force-load curve. 

Cleanliness

Spring assemblies have minimal friction and wear during operation, allowing them to maintain a clean operating environment. This effect can be further enhanced with intentional design that can eliminate shot peen requirements. 

Quality Control

Spring assemblies can repeatedly operate in tighter tolerance bands than alternatives. This is primarily for two reasons. First, the distributed nature of the force means that manufacturing tolerances at the spring assembly level are experienced as the root sum square of individual springs, resulting in small variations at the assembly level. Second, a manufacturing process that utilizes heat setting can be used to reliably and predictably lower load capabilities for spring assemblies into a tight tolerance window. Both effects combine to result in significantly tighter tolerance controls than alternatives. 

Cost Benefits 

General Material Costs

Spring assemblies require significantly less material than disc springs or wave springs to provide a given level of performance. Additionally, given the distributed nature of the load absorption, spring assemblies can be designed and manufactured using materials and wire thicknesses that enable lower material costs than a comparable single compression spring.

Material Costs in Corrosive Environments

Spring assemblies exhibit minimal wear in operation. This enables coatings to be used as an effective corrosion protectant, should the spring assembly be exposed to a corrosive environment. The same cannot be said for other alternatives, including disc springs and wave springs. These products experience much greater friction and wear during operation. This causes any spray coating to wear off quickly. Thus, these products must be manufactured using expensive materials that are inherently corrosion resistant, rather than being able to use the less expensive spray coating method for corrosion resistance. 

Simplified Installation

Spring assemblies are presented to downstream assembly operations in a neat method that encourages simple, repeatable assembly. If designed properly, they have error proofing inherently built into the design, since they can be installed in either orientation. The same cannot be said for other spring assembly alternatives. 

Down Stream Effects from Performance Benefits

The greatest cost benefits come from the realization that the performance benefits highlighted above can enable component or system level cost saving activities. By enabling superior performance in a tighter envelope with built in safety and reliability, intentional design utilizing spring assemblies can result in component or system level design that can be significantly more cost effective than designing around alternatives. 

The current PJ Wallbank Springs portfolio includes compression spring assemblies with the following properties. It is important to emphasize that for enough potential value for PJ Wallbank Springs, out-of-range assemblies can be produced:

Table 2.

Parameter	Range
Spring pack load at install	150 N to 3,500 N
Spring pack rate	24 N/mm to 362 N/mm
Spring pack diameter	40 mm to 262 mm
Install space	8.8 mm to 31.9 mm
Applied height	6.8 mm to 24.5 mm

 

Sample Ideas

PJ Wallbank Springs welcomes new uses and applications for compression spring assemblies in any applicable field or industry. Ideally, the use would involve the use of a compression spring assembly to replace other springs such as single compression springs, wave springs, disc springs, etc. but submissions should not be limited only to such uses. Several example ideas PJ Wallbank Springs has offered are listed below. These are general ideas provided to illustrate potential new uses for compression spring assemblies and Solvers are encouraged to expand upon and move beyond the examples into new and untapped areas.

1. Replacing the single, large compression spring in an automotive EGR valve (largely obsolete.) These typically have short compression springs with a relatively large outer diameter and it is an application in which performance is critical. Advantages of a compression spring assembly are:

a. Built in redundancy, which is good for a critical part

b. Does a better job of providing direct axial loading. The issue being that forces from single springs are inherently off-axis which results in uneven sealing and/or wear

c. Tighter load tolerance

d. Superior fatigue life

e. May reduce the cost of adjacent components since spring assemblies can often meet loading and cycling needs within tighter packaging constraints.

2. Improving product performance, quality, and assembly cost for products with an array of compression springs. Poppet valves, mechanical seals, and a host of other products come with 10+ compression springs in parallel. These can be a nightmare for assembly, resulting in long assembly times and/or quality problems (particularly if you miss a spring.) Spring assemblies can help by:

a. Significantly improving the cycle time and reliability of the assembly step when the springs are integrated into the process

b. PJ Wallbank Springs’ production process providing tighter load tolerance and improved performance over the life of the product, particularly if it is a safety critical application, is exposed to many cycles over the life time, and there are tight requirements for spring relaxation

c. Providing a temporary option for improving product assembly. Rather than using a fixed medium for the spring assembly that then becomes part of the end product, use a temporary solution for transporting and installing the springs that is removed during end product assembly.

3. Replacing stacked disc springs. Disc springs (or Belleville washers) are an example of a competitive technology. For the right applications, compression spring assemblies are cheaper, lighter, cleaner, and perform better. Engineers typically don’t realize that they’re using an obsolete product and/or they believe that they can’t package a compression spring assembly into their product, but that sometimes changes once they start working with spring experts.

Core Expertise

The core expertise of PJ Wallbank Springs is the design and production of highly reliable products that use precise placement and arrangement of multiple compression springs. In addition to new uses and applications for their compression spring assemblies, PJ Wallbank Springs is interested in finding other applications to apply their technical expertise of precise placement and arrangement of compression springs after spring fabrication.

This might include (but not limited to):

• Attachment of compression springs to a metal medium
• Attachment of compression springs to other mediums (foam, rubber, composite, wood, etc.)
• Placement and arrangement of compression springs into a temporary mold or packaging for shipping (for manufacturing plants or end consumer packaging) or processing of the compression springs in subsequent production steps

 

SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS

PJ Wallbank Springs is soliciting submissions that go beyond simply proposing a new use and submissions must provide a detailed use case with supporting information regarding the benefits of using a compression spring assembly versus what is currently used for the application. They are primarily interested in solutions with the potential to meet the following requirements:

Must have:

1. Provide a compelling new use case and target customer for compression spring assemblies currently unknown to PJ Wallbank Springs OR;
2. Provide a new application or customer for PJ Wallbank Springs’ technical expertise as described under the Core Expertise section above
3. Provide a detailed description of the benefits of using a compression spring assembly in the use case in place of the currently used technology.
4. The use case should have a projected volume of 50,000 units per year or greater; although PJ Wallbank Springs is certainly amenable to lower projected volumes for a use case offering the opportunity for significant margin potential vs. today’s primary application.

Nice to have:

1. Ideally you can describe a pain point significant enough to lead the target customer to really care about seeking an alternative solution that PJ Wallbank Springs could address.
2. Ideally utilizes compression spring assemblies within the size and properties ranges of the current PJ Wallbank Springs portfolio listed in Table 2, though we must emphasize again that for enough potential value for PJ Wallbank Springs, out-of-range assemblies can be produced.

 

Solutions with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 1-9 are invited.

This Prize Challenge has the following features:

1. By taking part you are granting PJ Wallbank Springs a right to use (but not own) your submitted information, provided that PJ Wallbank Springs pays at least $10,000 in awards and decides the award winners within 45 days from the start of evaluation, otherwise PJ Wallbank Springs loses this right. You will receive notification.
2. The best solution(s) have the opportunity to win awards from $2,500 to $20,000 for meeting enough of the requirements criteria. There is no assignment of IP Rights unless the Option is exercised.
3. The award distribution will be determined after theoretical evaluation of the proposals by PJ Wallbank Springs.
4. The Option: For awarded proposals PJ Wallbank Springs will have a 60-day option to acquire exclusive rights in return for a payment equal to $15,000. This one-time payment if exercised, is in addition to the awards stated above. The 60 days starts after the notification to Solvers that they have been selected as an awarded Solver.
5. PJ Wallbank Springs may also issue “Honorable Mention” recognitions for notable submissions that are not selected for monetary awards.
6. PJ Wallbank Springs may wish to partner with the Solver at the conclusion of the Challenge. Please indicate your interest in partnering.

 

YOUR SUBMISSION

Please login and register your interest, to complete the submission form.

The submitted proposals must be written in English and can include:

1. Participation type – you will first be asked to inform us how you are participating in this challenge, as a Solver (Individual) or Solver (Organization).
2. Option Participation - Please confirm you are willing to participate in the further exclusive IP rights option for an additional potential award consideration.
3. Solution Level - the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your solution.
4. Partnering - there may be an opportunity to partner at the conclusion of this Challenge. Please indicate if partnering is of interest to you.
5. Problem & Opportunity - highlight the innovation in your approach to the Problem, its point of difference, and the specific advantages/benefits this brings (up to 500 words).
6. Solution Overview - detail the features of your solution and how they address the SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS (500 words, there is space to add more in the summary field, and attach supporting data, diagrams, etc).
7. Solution Use Case – Please add here supporting information concerning the pain point significant enough to lead the target customer or market to really care about seeking an alternative solution; your comments are appreciated to help explore the potential of your idea (up to 500 words).
8. Experience - Expertise, use cases and skills you or your organization have in relation to your proposed solution.  (up to 500 words).
9. Solution Risks - any risks you see with your solution and how you would plan for this (up to 500 words).
10. Timeline, capability and costs - describe what you think is required to deliver the solution, estimated time and cost (up to 500 words).
11. Online References - provide links to any publications, articles or press releases of relevance (up to 500 words).

Wazoku encourages the use by Solvers of AI approaches to help develop their submissions, though any produced solely with generative AI are not of interest.

Find out more about participation in Wazoku Crowd Challenges.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on January 28th, 2025.

Late submissions will not be considered.

Your submission will be evaluated by the evaluation team first reviewing the information and content you have submitted at the submission form, with attachments used as additional context to your form submission. Submissions relying solely on attachments will receive less attention from the evaluation team.

After the Challenge submission close date, PJ Wallbank Springs will complete the review process and make a decision with regards to the winning solution(s) according to the timeline in the Challenge header. All Solvers who submit a proposal will be notified about the status of their submissions.