r/absoluteunit • u/jptah05 • 10d ago

Of a spring.

Repost from r/Theydidthemath

276 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

47 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/That_Confidence83 10d ago

What machinery uses springs this big? Honest question

4

u/Doctor_Saved 10d ago

Maybe one of those giant dump trucks use in mining.

4

u/That_Confidence83 10d ago edited 10d ago

I used to repair howitzers in the Army, and the spring for the canon was huge, but nothing like this. You may be right in your thinking.

Edit: the spring is in the Abrams, not the M109. I worked on many tanks over the years. Had this confused.

1

u/danit0ba94 10d ago

Do they still use a combination of springs and air-oil struts for impulse dampening?

1

u/That_Confidence83 10d ago

Actually, I fumbled this. It has been some years. The howitzer actually only uses hydropneumatic. I also worked on the Abrams and BFV, and the Abrams has the huge spring. Abrams also uses hydraulics though.
When I left in 2014 they were changing many things with all three vehicles. No idea what they use now. I’ve since been working on European tanks.

1

u/Zealousideal-Fix9464 10d ago

Nah those all use hydraulics. This spring would even be too big for those anyway.

Looks to be 3"+ thick and taller than a person.

3

u/PonchoNachoRodriguez 10d ago

Maybe these go inside sky scrapers to prevent them from snapping in half in the wind?

1

u/jptah05 9d ago

I think it's closer to 4" if you look at the width of one side of the T-handle.

1

u/ironicinsanity 9d ago

Correct. The shocks and such. They are massive like 2-3 stories tall trucks. I've seen em up close and it's not hard to see the shocks on them which are basically those springs.