See weblink below on calculating spring load. I'm trying to determine what the max load for the safety/overload valve to open up is for my jack. Since my spring is black coated, I'm assuming the material is oil tempered. The Sears jack is 3ton (6000 lbs). The spring height unloaded and measured outside of the jack is 18.75mm. It is closed and ground flat. The outside diameter is 10.20 or 10.25mm. The approx coil cross section is 3.2 to 3.25mm since I can't get the calipers on the coils wire cross section to measure it more accurately. The number of coils is 5, but if using the extra 1/2 turn it would be 5.5 turns. Mean diameter calculated to be 8.6mm.
So I'm not sure if the stress load or the load at solid is the value that the safety valve opens at. If one calculates the pre-load value to be the max height minus some compression distance of the spring that is equivalent to putting 1.5 turns on the set screw, one would think that the stress and/or load at solid to increase so that the safety valve opens at a different higher or lower value.
https://www.newcombspring.com/springulator/compression-spring-calculator
I selected the "dimensional" calculator part and not the 1, 2 load or the variable load calculator since I didn't know the P1, L1 values to enter.
stress limit=680, corrected stress @solid height=600, Load @solid height=536.88
tensile strength=1510 max % allowed at tensile strength=45 thus 1510*.45=679.5 or 680 the stress limit.
Although the above stress/load numbers didn't specify a unit of measure, from what I've searched on stress they are typically in MPa (mega pascals) which can be converted to PSI via google.
Thus 680 MPa is 98,625.7 psi then dividing 2,000 lbs/ton = 49.3 tons
Using load@solid height of 536.88 it is 77,867.86 ps and is 38.934 tons
Hence the spring range is 0-38.934 tons . I don't think I could turn the set screw enough to max out the maximum tonnage for the spring, and count the number of turns while doing it.
One could create/determine a scale that is a relationship between number of turns and tonnage. So the "turns" scale is 0-(max turns needed for 38.934 tons).
Now to determine the number of turns needed to open the safety valve at 3 tons, one would calculate the % as 3/38.934= 7.7% and multiple by the (max number of turns) on the "turns" scale to determine the number of turns needed to open at 3 tons. Hopefully it would be 1.5 turns.
Since x*(0.077)=1.5 turns then x is 19.48. Hence the (max turns needed for 38.934 tons) would be 19.48 turns.
Any more insight on the above info?