Nhk Spring Co., Ltd.

Nhk International Corporation

Nishizawa, Shinichi

Kumagai, Akihiko

Shinichi Nishizawa

Senri Moriyama

Ryuichi Sato

Takahiro Nakamura

Kazuo Furukawa

Takeshi Furuse

Jason Logsdon

Fang Dai

Norifumi Momoi

Shigeru Kuroda

Kiyoshi Kurimoto

Hironobu Sugiura

Yurika Goto

Yoshio Kobayashi

Masatake Kinoshita

Tadashi Sakai

Akihiko Kumagai

Liwen Lee

Chihiro Ito

Asuka Kawasaki

Jeff Butts

Shun Muramatsu

Norifumi Arisaka

Takuto Suzuki

Tsuyoshi Matsuda

Vinay Ravi

Nobuhisa Yasuda

Daisuke Ibano

A coil spring includes a wire rod and an elastic coat provided on the wire rod. The coil spring includes a coil section including a plurality of coil portions. The wire rod includes a round cross-sectional portion, a cross-section varying portion, and a rectangular cross-sectional portion along the longitudinal direction of the wire rod. The cross section of the rectangular cross-sectional portion is substantially square and has a first plane and a second plane. The first plane and the second plane oppose each other in the coil section. The elastic coat is provided on at least one of the first plane and the second plane. The elastic coat is continuous from the round cross-sectional portion to the cross-sectional variation portion and the rectangular cross-sectional portion.

Coil spring

According to one embodiment, a coil spring includes a wire rod with a first end and a second end. The wire rod includes a round section portion including a round first cross section perpendicular to a longitudinal direction of the wire rod, a quadrangle section portion including a quadrangle a second section perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, and a variable section portion formed between the round section portion and the quadrangle section portion of the wire rod. The cross section of the variable section portion varies from circular to quadrangle from the round section portion to the quadrangle section portion. The end turn part of the coil spring includes the quadrangle section portion. The width and thickness of the second cross-section are smaller than the diameter of the first cross-section. The area of the second cross section is smaller than the area of the square inscribed in the circle of diameter of the first cross section.

According to an embodiment, a coil spring includes a wire rod having an end and the other end. The wire rod of the coil spring includes, with regard to a section of the wire rod, a round section portion of an effective spring part, a square section portion in which the section is substantially square, and a taper portion. The square section portion includes an end turn part. A length of each side of the section of the square section portion is less than or equal to a square root of &#xbd; multiplied by a diameter of the wire rod of the round section portion. In the taper portion, from the round section portion to the square section portion, the section changes from a round shape to substantially a square shape, and a sectional area is decreased.

According to an embodiment, a damping device includes a base member including a first base and a second base, a weight member, a pair of first base-side coil springs provided between the first base and the weight member, and a pair of second base-side coil springs provided between the second base and the weight member. Each of the first base-side coil springs includes a first effective turn portion, a first fixed pin portion supported in the first base, and a first movable pin portion supported in the weight member. Each of the second base-side coil springs includes a second effective turn portion, a second fixed pin portion supported in the second base, and a second movable pin portion supported in the weight member.

Damping device

A damping device according to one embodiment includes a base member fixed to a vibration suppression target, a first coil spring, a second coil spring, and a weight member. The first coil spring includes a first fixed-side end turn portion supported on a first support portion of the base member, a first effective portion, and a first movable-side end turn portion. The second coil spring includes a second fixed-side end turn portion supported on a second support portion of the base member, a second effective portion, and a second movable-side end turn portion. Each of the first coil spring and the second coil spring is deflected in a longitudinal direction along the axis, and a transverse direction perpendicular to the axis. The weight member is arranged between the first coil spring and the second coil spring, and moves in the longitudinal direction and the transverse direction.

In a design method of torsion bars used for a trunk lid, free shapes of the torsion bars unhitched from the trunk lid are designed. A center line model of the initial free shape is geometrically and statically created on the basis of a design specification. The center line model of an open shape is created from the free shape model and is deformed into a center line model of a closed modified shape. The center line models of the analyzed closed shape and the target closed shape is compared with each other to obtain a difference torque and a difference vector occurring between corresponding nodes on the center lines. The center line model is so changed as to decrease the difference torque and the difference vector.

Method of designing torsion bars used for trunk lid

A coil spring for use in a link-motion-type suspension includes a lower end turn portion, an upper end turn portion, and an effective portion of a cylindrical shape between the lower end turn portion and the upper end turn portion. Further, the coil spring includes a bowing control portion including a taper portion formed in at least one end turn portion of the lower end turn portion and the upper end turn portion. The taper portion has a shape whose thickness is reduced from the middle of the end turn portion toward a distal end of a wire along its length, and bowing of the effective portion is suppressed by absorbing a change in the inclination of a spring seat by the taper portion.

Coil spring for vehicle suspension

A coil spring according to one embodiment includes a lower end turn portion which is in contact with a lower spring seat, an upper end turn portion which is in contact with an upper spring seat, and an effective portion between the lower end turn portion and the upper end turn portion. The coil spring is cylindrical about an axis of the effective portion in its free shape which is not compressed. Further, with respect to a coordinate system in which a force line is assumed as a Z-axis, the coil spring is cylindrical with a constant pitch in a direction along the Z-axis in its compressed shape which is compressed to a specified height.

A coil spring for a vehicle suspension according to one embodiment includes a lower end turn portion, an upper end turn portion, and a cylindrical effective portion between the lower end turn portion and the upper end turn portion. In at least one of the upper end turn portion and the lower end turn portion, a taper portion having a taper length and a taper thickness for controlling a force line of the coil spring is formed. The taper portion is formed such that the thickness is reduced in a tapered way from a thickness varying portion provided in the middle of the end turn portion toward a distal end of the wire along its length. The thickness varying portion is arranged at a position close to the force line.

A coil spring modeling apparatus includes a first attachment member disposed on a lower spring seat, a second attachment member disposed on an upper spring seat, an actuator unit formed of a Stewart-platform-type parallel mechanism, a hydraulic pressure supply device, a torsion detection mechanism, and a controller. The torsion detection mechanism is constituted of displacement gauges such as a linear variable differential transformer. The displacement gauges are provided on hydraulic cylinders, and detect amounts of displacement relative to the reference lengths of the hydraulic cylinders, respectively. The controller calculates a relative torsional angle between the first attachment member and the second attachment member based on the detected displacement.

Coil spring modeling apparatus and method utilizing a torsion detection to control an actuator unit

A coil spring modeling apparatus includes a first attachment member disposed on a lower spring seat, a second attachment member disposed on an upper spring seat, an actuator unit formed of a Stewart-platform-type parallel mechanism, a spring height detection mechanism, and a controller. The spring height detection mechanism is constituted of displacement gauges such as a linear variable differential transformer. These gauges are provided on hydraulic cylinders, and detect amounts of displacement relative to the reference lengths of the hydraulic cylinders, respectively. A hydraulic pressure supply device is controlled by the controller and supplies fluid pressure according to the displacement detected by the gauges to the respective hydraulic cylinders.

Coil spring modeling apparatus and method of the same

A coil spring modeling apparatus includes an actuator unit formed of a Stewart-platform-type parallel mechanism, a first inner load cell accommodated in a first attachment member, a second inner load cell accommodated in a second attachment member, and a rotation support mechanism. The actuator unit is rotatably supported by the rotation support mechanism about an axis. The first inner load cell is arranged on the first seat adapter coaxially with the rotation support mechanism, and detects an axial force acting on the lower spring seat and a moment. The second inner load cell is arranged under the second seat adapter coaxially with the rotation support mechanism, and detects an axial force acting on the upper spring seat and a moment.

Coil spring modeling apparatus

A stabilizer bar is intended for use in a vehicle, and a torsion part of the stabilizer bar is fixed to the vehicle body by a fixing member. A resin sheathing is provided integrally on an outer peripheral surface of the stabilizer bar. The fixing member is composed of the sheathing, a rubber bush disposed on the outer periphery of the sheathing, and a mounting fixture for mounting the rubber bush on the vehicle body side so as to cover the outer periphery of the rubber bush. The sheathing and the rubber bush are immovably assembled to each other. Thus, there may be provided a vehicle stabilizer, highly durable, easily mountable and replaceable, low-cost, and highly operable.

Vehicle stabilizer

A finite element analysis (FEA) based coil spring design method that utilizes a reverse engineering based concept. The method involves first designing a desired jounce profile, which is typically an output in the conventional FEA based design, and then reversely determining the corresponding free profile necessary for manufacturing a spring having desired performance specifications.

Reverse engineering based coil spring design method

A method for modeling a coil spring on a suspension system in terms of derived torque and force characteristics of the spring comprising the steps of providing a force field generator for simulating the spring, securing the force field generator to the suspension system, activating the force field generator to produce forces for characterizing the spring, measuring the forces; and deriving a spring design based upon the measured forces.

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Walled Lake, MI, United States of America

Shinichi Nishizawa