What is Hooke's 

Law?
Learn about elasticity and how to determine the force exerted by a spring. 

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What is a spring?

A spring is an object that can be deformed by a force and then return to its
original shape after the force is removed.

Springs come in a huge variety of different forms, but the simple metal coil
spring is probably the most familiar. Springs are an essential part of almost all
moderately complex mechanical devices; from ball-point pens to racing car
engines.

There is nothing particularly magical about the shape of a coil spring that
makes it behave like a spring. The 'springiness', or more correctly,
the elasticity is a fundamental property of the wire that the spring is made
from. A long straight metal wire also has the ability to ‘spring back’ following a
stretching or twisting action. Winding the wire into a spring just allows us to
exploit the properties of a long piece of wire in a small space. This is much
more convenient for building mechanical devices. [Explain some details]

What happens when a material is deformed?

When a force is placed on a material, the material stretches or compresses in
response to the force. We are all familiar with materials like rubber which
stretch very easily.
In mechanics, the force applied per unit area is what is important, this is
called the stress (symbol σ ). The extent of the stretching/compression
produced as the material responds to stress is called the strain (symbol ϵ).
Strain is measured by the ratio of the difference in length ΔL to original
length L0  along the direction of the stress, i.e.ϵ = ΔL/L0 .
​ ​

Every material responds differently to stress and the details of the response
are important to engineers who must select materials for their structures and
machines that behave predictably under expected stresses.

For most materials, the strain experienced when a small stress is applied
depends on the tightness of the chemical bonds within the material. The
stiffness of the material is directly related to the chemical structure of the
material and the type of chemical bonds present. What happens when the
stress is removed depends on how far the atoms have been moved. There
are broadly two types of deformation:

1. Elastic deformation. When the stress is removed the material returns to

the dimension it had before the load was applied. The deformation is
reversible, non-permanent.
2. Plastic deformation. This occurs when a large stress is applied to a
material. The stress is so large that when removed, the material does not
spring back to its previous dimension. There is a permanent, irreversible
deformation. The minimal value of the stress which produces plastic
deformation is known as the elastic limit for the material.

Any spring should be designed and specified such that it only ever
experiences elastic deformation when built into a machine under normal
operation.

Hooke's law
When studying springs and elasticity, the 17ᵗʰ century physicist Robert
Hooke noticed that the stress vs strain curve for many materials has
a linear region. Within certain limits, the force required to stretch an elastic
object such as a metal spring is directly proportional to the extension of the
spring. This is known as Hooke's law and commonly written:

F = −kx

Where F  is the force, x is the length of extension/compression and k  is a

constant of proportionality known as the spring constant which is usually
given in N/m.

Though we have not explicitly established the direction of the force here, the
negative sign is customarily added. This is to signify that the restoring
force due to the spring is in the opposite direction to the force which caused
the displacement. Pulling down on a spring will cause an extension of the
spring downward, which will in turn result in an upward force due to the
spring.

It is always important to make sure that the direction of the restoring force is
specified consistently when approaching mechanics problems involving
elasticity. For simple problems we can often interpret the extension x as a 1-
dimensional vector; in this case the resulting force will also be a 1-
dimensional vector and the negative sign in Hooke’s law will give the correct
direction of the force.

When calculating x, it is important to remember that the spring itself will also
have some nominal length L0 . The total length L of a spring under extension
​

is equal to the nominal length plus the extension, L = L0 + x. For a spring

​

under compression, it would be L = L0 − x.

Exercise 1: A 75 kg person stands on a compression spring with spring
constant 5000 N/mand nominal length 0.25 m. What is the total length of the
loaded spring? [Hide solution]

Using Hooke's law we find the extension,

F
x=
k
mg
=
k
(75 kg) ⋅ (9.81 m/s^2)
=
5000 N/m
≃ 0.15 m

We now subtract this from the nominal length of the spring:

L = L0 − x
​

= 0.25 − 0.15 m
= 0.1 m

Exercise 2a: You are designing a mount for moving a 1 kg camera smoothly

over a vertical distance of 50 mm. The design calls for the camera to slide on
a pair of rails, with a spring supporting the camera and pulling it up against
the tip of an adjustment screw as shown in Figure 1. The nominal length of
the spring is L0 = 50 mm. What is the minimum spring constant required
​

for this design? [Hide explanation]

Why not connect the camera directly to the screw? While this would
work, it would not result in a mechanism with a smooth and repeatable
movement as the screw is adjusted. This is because there is backlash in any
mechanism where a screw turns in a nut or threaded section. This is due to
the finite spacing of the threads. A common engineering solution to the
problem of backlash is to use a screw pushing against a spring, as in this
example.

Maximum extension Minimum extension

Adjustment screw

100 mm
Spring

150 mm
L0=50 mm

Sliding rail

Camera
m=1 kg

Figure 1: Camera height adjustment mechanism (exercise 2).

[Hide solution]

The spring must be elastic enough to supply enough force to pull the camera
against the screw tip at all times. The force will be weakest when the spring
is at its minimum extension, i.e. when the distance between the top and
bottom of the spring is 100 mm.

Because the spring is specified to have nominal length of 50 mm, the spring
will have a minimum extension x = 100 mm − 50 mm = 50 mm. The spring
force must oppose the force due to gravity on the camera
of mg = (1 kg) ⋅ (9.81 m/s^2) = 9.81 N .

Using Hooke's law we find the required spring constant:

 F
k=
x
​

9.81 N
=
50 ⋅ 10−3  m
​

≃ 196 N/m

Exercise 2b: What is the minimum elastic limit required by your spring?

[Hide solution]

The spring must be robust enough to not break or exceed its elastic limit
when the force on it is at the maximum permitted by the design. The spring
force is maximized when the extension of the spring is maximized.

We know that the maximum extension is x = 150 mm − 50 mm = 100 mm and

we assume we have selected a spring with spring constant of 196 N/m.

We can use Hooke's law to find the maximum extension force. This
corresponds to the minimum elastic limit that we need our spring to have.

F = kx
= (196 N/m) ⋅ (100 ⋅ 10−3  m)
= 19.6 N

Young's modulus and combining springs

Young's modulus (also known as the elastic modulus) is a number that

measures the resistance of a material to being elastically deformed. It is
named after the 17ᵗʰ century physicist Thomas Young. The stiffer a material,
the higher its Young's modulus.
Young's modulus is usually given the symbol E , and is defined as:

σ Stress
E= ϵ ​ = Strain ​

Young's modulus can be defined at any strain, but where Hooke's law is
obeyed it is a constant. We can directly obtain the spring constant k  from the
Young's modulus of the material, the area A over which the force is applied
(since stress depends on the area) and nominal length of the material L. 
[Hide explanation]

This treatment holds reasonably well for a simple elastic material, for
example a block of rubber. A metal coil spring is an example of a relatively
complicated structure which exploits both axial and torsional deformation. In
this case further analysis is required to determine the correct value for the
spring constant based on the properties of the bulk metal. However, the
general form of the relationship between the spring constant and the springs
geometry remains the same.

k = E AL ​

This is a very useful relationship to understand when thinking about the

properties of combinations of springs. Consider the case of two similar ideal
springs with spring constant k  which can be arranged to support a weight
end-to-end (series) or jointly (parallel) as shown in Figure 2. What is the
effective spring constant for the combination in each case?
 Series Parallel

1 kg
1 kg

1 kg
1 kg

Figure 2: Series and parallel combinations of two similar springs.

In the series configuration, we can see that the combined spring is equivalent
to one spring with double the length. The spring constant in this case must
therefore be half that of an individual spring, keffective = k/2. ​

In the parallel configuration, the length remains the same but the force is
distributed over twice the area of material. This doubles the effective spring
constant of the combination, keffective = 2k . [Hide explanation] ​

Does this relationship show up elsewhere in physics? It turns out that

the behavior of spring constants for series and parallel combinations exactly
mirrors the series and parallel combinations of capacitors in electrical
circuits.

In series,

1 1 1
keffective ​
​ = k1 ​
​ + k2 ​
​ + ….

In parallel,

keffective = k1 + k2 + ….
​ ​ ​
Springs with mass
Consider the setup shown in Figure 3. A spring supports a 1 kg mass
horizontally via a pulley (which can be assumed to be frictionless) and an
identical spring supports the same mass vertically. Suppose the spring has
mass of 50 g, spring constant k=200 N/m. What is the extension of the
spring in each case?

Horizontal Vertical

1 kg
1 kg 1 kg
1 kg

Figure 3: Comparison of a spring used horizontally and vertically.

In both cases, the force on the spring due to the mass has the same
magnitude, mg . So we might first assume that the extension is the same in
both cases. It turns out that for a real spring this is not true.

The complication here is that the spring itself has mass. In the vertical case,
the force of gravity acts on the spring in the same direction as the force due
to the mass. So the mass of the spring adds to that of the weight. The
extended spring is supporting a total weight of 1.05 kg which causes an
extension of

1.05 kg⋅9.81 m/s^2
200 N/m
= 51.5 mm
In the horizontal case, the pulley has changed the direction of the force. The
force due to the 1 kg weight acting on the spring is now orthogonal to the
force of gravity acting on the spring. So the extension of the spring is
supporting only 1 kg. It therefore extends

1 kg⋅9.81 m/s^2
200 N/m
= 49 mm

This difference can be quite significant and if not taken into account it can
lead to incorrect results in the laboratory. In physics teaching laboratories, we
often use spring balances to measure force. A spring balance (Figure 4) is
simply a spring with a pointer attached and a scale from which the force can
be read.

Figure 4: A common spring balance.

Because the manufacturers of spring balances expect their product to be

used vertically (for example, by a fisherman measuring the mass of his fish)
the scale is calibrated to take into account the mass of the spring and hook. It
will give an incorrect absolute result if used to measure a horizontal force.
However, Hooke's law tells us that there is a linear relationship between force
and extension. Because of this we can still rely on the scale
for relative measurements when used horizontally. Some spring balances
have an adjustment screw which allows the zero point to be calibrated,
eliminating this problem. [Hide explanation]

What do we mean by absolute and relative? An absolute measurement is

a measurement of a quantity that has a defined reference point where the
quantity is zero. A measurement of length by a ruler with a printed scale is an
example of an absolute measurement. A ruler without printed numbers (only
tick marks) would only be able to make a relative measurement.

To convert a relative measurement to an absolute one we need to choose

our own reference point. In the case of a horizontal spring balance we would
probably choose to establish the reference point by finding the force
measured when the spring is unloaded. We would then subtract this from the
value shown on the scale of the balance when making a measurement.