Abstract
Springs are widely utilized in machine element. To find out stiffness of frustum-shaped coil spring, the space beam theory using the finite element method is adopted in this paper. In three dimensional space, a space frame element is a straight bar of uniform cross section which is capable of resisting axial forces, bending moments about two principal axes in the plane of its cross section and twisting moment about its centroidal axis. The corresponding displacement degrees of freedom are twelve. To find out load vector of coil spring subjected to distributed compression. principle of virtual work is adapted. And this theory was programming using MATLAB software. To compare FEM using MATLAB software was applied MSC. Nastran software. The geometry model for MSC. Patran was produced by 3-D design modeling software. Finite element model was produced by MSC. Patran. Finite element was applied tetra (CTETRA) having 10 node. The analysis results of the MATLAB and MSC. Nastran are fairly well agreed with those of various experiments. Using MATLAB program proposed in this paper and MSC. Nastran, spring constants and stresses can be predicted by input of few factors.
