Spring Hooke's Law

Hooke's law is used to model the behavior of springs. It states that the force applied to the spring is directly proportional to its deflection, provided that it is within the elastic range. To find the magnitude of the force (F), the elongation distance is multiplied by a spring rate.

F = -kx

Where k is the spring rate and x is the elongation distance. The negative sign is only a convention to indicate that the spring force acts in the opposite direction.

For a given cross-sectional area of the spring, the force can be converted into stress, while the deflection can be described as strain. Hooke's law can then be defined as the proportionality between the stress and strain of a material. The ratio between stress and strain is called Young's modulus. Young's modulus is more extensively used to model the behavior of springs since it is an intrinsic property of a material. On the other hand, the spring constant varies with the length of spring making it an extrinsic property.