Optimal design and stacking of Belleville spring washers under static loading

Abstract

The design of Belleville spring stacks is usually performed by trial-and-error using well established relationships available in textbooks. Based on those standard equations, this paper illustrates a step-by-step, iterative process, which streamlines the design task and gives evidence of all possible solutions. The procedure starts from high-level design specifications and identifies many solutions in terms of number, arrangement and size of identical washers compatible with constraints on strength and dimensions. The best option can be picked from an inventory of designs according to the optimality criterion of choice (e.g., overall length, mass, volume, …). Numerical examples are provided for three case studies, for which the overall design space is visualized through an insightful tabular form. It is pointed out that the procedure, here developed for static loading of the spring device, is easily adapted to fatigue loading.