Stress pulse dispersion in helical springs

This paper presents the results of investigating the effect of curvature and pitch on stress-wave propagation in helical springs. It supplements a previous paper in which the work carried out on a single spring of fixed curvature and pitch was described and the experimental results compared with theory. A short duration, wide-band pulse technique, described in the first paper, was used to investigate the nature of the propagation. Theoretical dispersion curves, appropriate to the springs used, were computed for comparison with the experimental results which were interpreted according to Kelvin's principle of stationary phase.