Common features are listed at the bottom of the Home Page

The garter spring is essentially a helical extension spring formed into a circular ring with the ends firmly connected and usually statically loaded on its inside diameter. The program assumes an endless spring, ignoring the joining method which does not significantly affect the results. Initially, the input boxes for the free inside diameter and the spring coil diameter are not visible. When a value for the expanded inside diameter is entered, the missing boxes appear with suggested values entered. These can be edited if desired. Additional inputs are the radial load per unit of circumference and a choice from a drop-down list of 13 materials. An experience factor can be applied to the allowable stress.

On pressing the Calculate button on the Design form,messages pop up (with suggestions for correction) if the spring index is high or low, or if allowable stresses can be exceeded under certain conditions. After viewing the calculated properties, you can go back to edit your input values, if necessary, by pressing the Review Input button.

Data entry on the Garter Spring Analyst form is similar to that on the design form. In this case, required values are the free and expanded inside diameters of the spring and the coil mean diameter and the wire diameter. If the initial tension is not known, the program calculates a suitable value and inserts it in the data input box.

Pressing Calculate on the Garter Analysis form will bring up, if applicable, messages to advise of the potential for exceeding stress limits, or high, or low spring index and they will include suggestions for correction. If you want to make changes, pressing the Review Input button will return you to the previous screen to edit the input, or you can accept the results as displayed.