Hi all,

I subscribe entirely to "Mariog" thoughts synthesized above.

Really, it's strange and beyond sound engineering judgement how people may assimilate spring supports as a cold-spring spring provision.

Here is a quote from an older Ceasar II Technical Reference Manual (...those old and good times when engineers used to be real engineers, preoccupied of sound judgement and fundamentals understanding, and less of graphical interfaces and "magical power" of dialog windows' buttons...):

<<
Cold spring is the process of offsetting (or pre-loading) the piping system with displacement loads (usually accomplished by cutting short or long the pipe runs between two anchors) for the purpose of reducing the
absolute expansion load on the system. Cold spring is used to do the following:
- hasten the thermal shakedown of the system in fewer operating cycles
- reduce the magnitude of loads on equipment and restraints, since often, only a single application of a large load is sufficient to damage these elements.
>>

So, there is no logical association or connection between cold-spring and spring support provision.

As "Mariog" pointed out above, cold spring/support is just an aplication of a force - in fact it's an ELASTIC Restraint, which provides a reaction force following pipe deflection.
Sound engineering practice recommends NOT TO DEVELOP initial deflections and/or stress states at installation by the spring supports. Such approach is a "cheating" practice and might yield to unpleasant incidents during installation operations. In other words, it is a wrong and unprofessional approach to set the installation/cold load value a high values to induce initial upward movement and/or initial restraint's loads opposite to those develop under operating/"hot" conditions.

On the contrary, Cold-Spring is the development (at installation) of an initial stress & internal forces' state that is opposite to that developed under operating/"hot" conditions.
It should be noted that cold-spring does not reduce the displacement stress range, it just reduces the restraints' reaction loads level.

I suggest to "beginners" or less experienced "engineers" (!), to read again and carefully Caesar II manuals, some reference specialty books (still recommended on Coade website) and to search and read older posts on this subject, which may be found on this Forum. Fortunately, high level professionals (such as Mr. John Luf or Mr. John Breen) left available a lot of interesting topics on this matter and many others...

Regards,