Like most other basic mechanisms, metal springs have existed for a long time in the bronze age. Even for metals, wood is used as a structural member of flexible bow and arrow and military catapult. In the Renaissance, precise clocks made precision springs the first necessity. In Fourteenth Century, we saw the precise clock of revolutionary astronomical navigation developed. The world's exploration and conquest of European colonial powers continue to provide impetus for watchmakers "science and art." The other area of the firearm promotes the development of the spring. At the dawn of the industrial revolution in eighteenth Century, a large, accurate and cheap spring was proposed. Whereas the watchmaker's spring is often made by hand, the spring mass production is made of piano steel wire or similar material. Advanced manufacturing methods make today's springs ubiquitous. The computer control line and the plate bending machine allow the processing of custom springs. Obviously, this is a special machine. The spring is just an accumulator. It has the function of storing energy, but it can not release the energy slowly. To realize the function of releasing slowly, it should be realized by "Spring + large transmission ratio mechanism", which is common in the mechanical meter.
The spring was applied long ago. Ancient arches and crossbows are two kinds of springs in broad sense. The inventor of the spring should be strictly English scientist Hooke. Although the spiral compression spring had appeared and used widely at that time, Hooke proposed "Hooke's law" - the elongation of the spring is proportional to the size of the force. It is based on this principle that in 1776, the spring scale using the spiral compression spring was asked. The world. Soon, a spring specially designed for clocks was invented by Hooke himself. The spring that accords with "Hooke's law" is the real spring. The dish spring was invented by French Belle Weil. It is a tapered cross section washer spring made of metal sheet or forging blank. After the emergence of modern industry, there were new springs, such as air spring, rubber spring, scroll spring, die spring, stainless steel spring, air spring, memory alloy spring, besides the dish spring.