2. General principles

Springs can be considered as beams (or sets of beams, in the case of leaf springs) subject to the general laws of strength of materials subject to their restrictive conditions constituting the fundamental assumptions of strength of materials (see article Theory of beams [C 2 010] ) and which can be expressed as follows:

• the external actions exerted on the beam are either a force P assumed to be applied at the center of a straight section, or a torque C applied to a straight section;

• the various shape and load conditions cause a deflection (or displacement of the point of application of force P) along the line of action of P, or a rotation of the torque application section C about an axis parallel to that of C ;

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