Posted to News on 22nd Nov 2005, 00:00
Hang it all - it's the spring that counts
Applied Spring Technology has solved a problem for a global packaging company in London, supplying dress and fashion hangers to leading High Street retailers. The hangers are the type that compress to the centre, and then expand left and right to fit the garment. The problem was that manufacturers were putting size 8s on the spring-loaded hanger for shipment to the UK in huge container-loads, which were size 10s by the time the retailer unloaded them!
Working closely with the packaging company, AST developed a 'clever little spring' giving just the right force, produced the desired results; garments did not increase in size, nor did they fall off the hangers in transit.
The traditional method used a wire compression spring, and as the arms of the clothes hanger were compressed to reduce the size for small garments, the force increased. The AST solution is different in that the spring within the clothes hanger is constant force - slightly negative - so that, as the clothes hanger is reduced in size to accommodate small garments, the load reduces a little so as not to stretch the garments.
