In the construction of various types of facilities, such as nuclear power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, gas liquification plants and power generating plants, pipes and other equipments require some type of supports so that the thermal loads (expansion/contraction) of the system do not produce any extra stresses. One of the support system is a variable spring support wherein the deflection due to thermal loading of the system is accommodated by the compression/decompression of coil springs. For most cases variable spring supports are comprised of a single spring. As the load requirements increase, it becomes impractical to use a single spring to support these large loads. In such cases, several springs in parallel are configured to safely support large loads. This configuration of parallel springs we refer to as “large load variable spring” and hereafter we will denote these as “LLVS”. LLVS may find use in, for example, chemical reactors, turbine inlet/outlets, pressure vessels, compressors, etc.
Various types of parallel spring configuration and apparatus for supporting loads have been proposed. For example, parallel springs in a row (FIG. 12), four parallel springs in a 2×2 matrix (FIG. 13), or multiple parallel springs in a circular configuration (FIG. 14). Up to a certain load capacity (approximately 100,000 lb), loading and unloading of such parallel spring configurations is possible via manually manipulating the heavy duty load bearing nuts. However, above this load range, the spring rate and the number of spring coils make it practically impossible to load/unload a LLVS manually. This led us to design and develop a multiple parallel spring system (LLVS) that is able to support heavy loads and permits loading and unloading via employment of hydraulic jacks activated by a single pump.
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