Truck suspensions often have "helper springs" that engage at high loads. One such arrangement is a leaf spring with a helper coil spring mounted on the axle, as in Figure P7.17. The helper spring engages when the main leaf spring is compressed by distance y0, and then helps to support any additional load. Consider a leaf spring constant of 6.20 105 N/m, helper spring constant of 3.60 105 N/m, and y0 = 0.500 m.
(a) What is the compression of the leaf spring for a load of 3.65 105 N?
m
(b) How much work is done compressing the springs?
88 answers