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LECTURE 5. Strengthlimited design
M P Gururajan
Email: guru.courses@gmail.com
Room No. MS 207/A3
Phone: 1340
Homepage: http://aml883.wikidot.com
Case study: windtunnel fan blades
● Stiffness: the first
consideration
● Strength: the second
(and probably the
more important)
criterion
● Image courtesy: wiki
Typical timber used in fanblades
● Honduran mahogany
● Relatively high
strength to weight
ratio (particularly in
shear)
● Modest density
(specific gravity: 0.5)
● Relatively wide
Image courtesy: wiki
boards which are free
of imperfections
Typical timber used in fanblades
● Replacement for
Honduran mahogany
since it became
commerically extinct
in 19601970s
● Slightly more dense
than Honduran
Image courtesy: designtechnology.org site
Typical timber used in fanblades
● Birch veneer
● Expensive
● Basis of (almost) all
the compressed wood
used in windtunnel
fanblades
Image courtesy: Recreational Aviation Australia Inc homepage
Typical timber used in fanblades
Sitka Spruce (Image courtesy: wiki)
Typical timber used in fanblades
● Most popular choice (for esp. larger blades)
● Highest strength to weight ratio for any timber
● Obtainable in large quantities at reasonable
cost at reasonable quality
● Can be unobtainable due to political
considerations!
Typical timber used in fanblades
● Improved or
compressed wood
(Plywood)
● Birch plywood
● Image courtesy: wiki
Typical timber used in fanblades
● Take veneers; bond them with heat and
pressure; the ply is then denser and stronger
than natural wood
● Improves tensile, compressive and shear
strength
● Birch or Beech veneers; Birch is preferred
because the fatigue properties are well studied
and are in public domain
A digression!
The details of processing of compressed wood for
fanblades!
Making of compressed wood
● Standard quality in veneers – limits on the
maximum size of knots, areas of dote or decay,
number and distribution of shakes ...
Knots in wood
Images courtesy: wiki
What is a shake?
Image courtesy: Vermont Timber works homepage
Making of compressed wood
● Choose Canadian Birch veneer of standard
quality
● Typical thickness standard – 0.7 mm plus or
minus 0.127 mm
● Maximum length of veneer supplied – 193 cm
● Mositure content should be 11% before packing
Making of compressed wood
● Spray thin kraft paper with glue and intersperse
it with the veneers
● Insert into a press and cure at the required
temperature
● Typical board lengths of 182.9 cm
● Glue, temperatures, and presusres –
proprietary; typically, 150 deg. C, cooling cycle
down to 40 deg. C and pressures of 13.7 MPa
are needed; store and controlled humidity and
temperature
Making of compressed wood
● Maximum practical board width to obtain
consistent properties is approximately 45.7 cm;
however, nominal veneer supplied are in the
range 22.9 cm to 30.5 cm — beyond this size,
the probability of finding defects are more.
● These narrow pieces are edge jointed with glue
in a special machine that glues the edges, and
presses them together while passing them
through an assembly that is kept at the curing
temperature.
Making of compressed wood
● The veneer butt joints are staggered such that
there is more than 10.2 cm stagger in the
adjacent veneers.
● The typical veneer and glue film are assembled
with a pack size that is wider by 5.1 cm and
longer by 10.2 cm so that the board can be
trimmed after pressing.
Making of compressed wood
● The number of veneers required for a particular
thickness of board varies; since each veneer is
of slightly varying density, they all are to be
carefully measured so that the final density of
the board is within tolerance. The typical board
thickness for consistent properties is 2.5 cm
(that means, typically, there are around 40
veneers pressed together).
Making of compressed wood
● For compressed wood suitable for fan blade
roots, the density of board should be 1.31 Sp.
G. with a tolerance of 0.05 Sp. G.
● Glues: oil and natural, initially (delaminate if
exposed to moisture or humidity); chemical
glues are the later choice.
Making of compressed wood
● Large tunnels lead to an increase in the tunnel
temperature.
● As the designs become complex, the possibility
of small nuts and bolts coming loose is also
high.
● A glass cloth (0.3 mm — strong but not too
heavy) and resin (instead of natural linen in
earlier systems) are used
● Surface protection!
Making of compressed wood
● Adaptor: a steel component that attaches
compressed wood of a blade with the hub
● The steel should be cadmium or nickel plated
since compressed wood retains nearly 5% of
moisture which will lead to rusting
● In blades with rectangular root with bonded
plates, aluminium alloys were the choice.
Making of compressed wood
● Sealing with other components and sealing for
moisture using rubber type and epoxy materials
is common
● Achieving balance weight adjustment requires
the use of lead wool and low melting bismuth
leadtin alloys.
One last point!
● High temperature use at 93 deg. C: normally
straight grained, compressed wood loses
moisture and hence tends to shrink and split
across the direction perpendicular to the grain
● By including 25% of the veneers to be cross ply,
though there is a slight loss in strength, at such
relatively high temperatures, the blades can
perform without deterioration.
A big question
What is strength?
The answer
The ability of the material to resist plastic
deformation (yield, flow, collapse,...) under the
applied loading conditons
What are we looking for?
The component stays within the elastic limit –
Ideal
If not, at least the yielding is local
When yielding does happen, the collapse is a
controlled plastic collapse (Modern cars in an
accident)
Scheme of study
● Different types of structural components under
different loading conditions: solutions to the
plastic problem
● Material indices for yieldlimited design
● Metal forming operations and full plasticity
● Some definitions and measurements: strength,
plastic work, ductility, ...
● Origins of strength and ductility
● Manipulating strength and ductility