Breaking strength calculation of a sailboat bowsprit needed


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oekmont
oekmont
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No.

Oek (Ök) is what my closest friends call me.
Mont is just an internet affix to make it sound a little French (which I am not).

Carbon Charly
Carbon Charly
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Thanks to OEKMOT and Zorbit for their professional explainations ! I will think about some reforcement parts which I will glue into the tube. Will keep you informed. Thanks again for your professional hints !

P.S. Again the questions to OEKMOT:  Did you study at Montan-University in Leoben ?


BR
Carbon-Charly

Zorbit
Z
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Zorbit - 1/11/2019 3:42:27 PM
I'm not qualified to comment on the strength issues raised,  but can add some details based on working in a yacht builders for a couple of years.
The company I worked for used carbon masts and bowsprits,  and fixings to the end of carbon tubes were made via Delrin or hardwood plugs fitted inside and butting to the end of the tubes.  Hardwood plugs were thoroughly coated with West epoxy and sanded for a key,  all plugs had a drain hole.  Plugs were fixed in with a Sikaflex product,  sorry I can't remember which one,  and stainless screws.

If a stainless clamp type fitting was used a "bandage" of epoxy/carbon was used to reinforce that area,  through bolts were supported by hardwood inserts inside the tube.

On the photo of the bowsprit,  the supporting ring looks quite hard / sharp edged.  That would worry me if a plain tube was used,  I would prefer a bandage around the tube at that point.



I forgot to add that the hardwood plugs must be thoroughly sealed every time a screw is used,  otherwise they will swell inside the tube and damage it.
Zorbit
Z
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I'm not qualified to comment on the strength issues raised,  but can add some details based on working in a yacht builders for a couple of years.
The company I worked for used carbon masts and bowsprits,  and fixings to the end of carbon tubes were made via Delrin or hardwood plugs fitted inside and butting to the end of the tubes.  Hardwood plugs were thoroughly coated with West epoxy and sanded for a key,  all plugs had a drain hole.  Plugs were fixed in with a Sikaflex product,  sorry I can't remember which one,  and stainless screws.

If a stainless clamp type fitting was used a "bandage" of epoxy/carbon was used to reinforce that area,  through bolts were supported by hardwood inserts inside the tube.

On the photo of the bowsprit,  the supporting ring looks quite hard / sharp edged.  That would worry me if a plain tube was used,  I would prefer a bandage around the tube at that point.


oekmont
oekmont
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Let's see:
I guess the tube is fixed to the sledge with rivets or bolts? That would be very bad, because ud tubes don't like to take loads perpendicular to the surface, or twisting forces at a local point of the surface, no matter in what direction, wich means that everything that goes through the tube and is meant to transfer loads isn't good. The easiest solution should be to either fix it with a wide ring clamp, or to glue a aluminium or non-ud carbon tube piece either in or around the tube and use this reinforced section to bolt through. Or fix it on the endcap and bond it with the tube.
the ring also induces forces orthogonal to the surface, wich can damage the tube. It is difficult to find a good solution here, because of the sliding movement. Better would be a felt like ring surface, that sits tight and doesn't allow movement inside the ring and spreads the load better. Another option would be to reinforce the tube locally from the inside at the ring in work position. The reinforcement would be ideally a piece of non ud carbon tube.
The inox eyes are a bad solution for this kind of tube. Even the installation of them could damage the tube, as they are flattening the tube wall when you are tightening the screws, which produces the worst load for ud tubes: a radial
bending momentum. And drilling ud tubes is always a bad idea, because the holes can't take loads effectively in any direction. And the worst direction is the one your ropes are pulling, which tries to split the tube orthogonal to the fibres. The solution would be again a glued in endcap that takes the loads, or a local reinforcement, or a wide clamp.
That doesn't mean that your tube will fail, it simply means that it will take far less loads with that fastenings than with methods that take the special propertys of the carbon tube into account.
The fibres in that tube are highly orientated. The tube is incredible strong in one direction, but also incredible weak in every other aspect.

Carbon Charly
Carbon Charly
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Hi Oekmot,
Thanks  for  your  detailed response.
Here some more pictures.


  NOT teflon but NYLON !








I hope this helps to understand the  functions


BR
Carbon-Charly

Edited 6 Years Ago by Carbon Charly
oekmont
oekmont
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The main problem here will be the fastening. As I showed, the pure strength of the part seem to leave quite a big safety margin, even if the safety factor of the original is just 1. But it is easily possible to crush that tube with an inappropriate fastening (method). This is due to it's orthopic material characteristics.
I think the shear forces induced by orthogonal forces shouldn't be the problem, although it isn't really possible by hand, as the winding is very loose and not continuous on a smaller scale. But shear forces are usually only a problem, when the beams are relatively short compared to their diameter. Your support and force induction are about a metre apart, wich is about a dozen times the diameter of the tube. But without an effort I am not willing to do here, I can't prove it mathematically. You could assume the tube as pure ud, but it is absolutely within the realm of possibilities, that the loose winding might produce a notch effect, wich makes the tube weaker than an pure ud tube. So I don't see much sense in calculating this.

Either way, you can't get any insurance from asking some guy at a forum, especially if you got no education in mechanical engineering to comprehend my approach. So further calculations, which will require some simplification of the problem will do you just as much as my feeling based on experience, that it seems like the tube will do the job, as long as you are using fibre reinforced plastic compatible fastening methods.
A picture of the tube mounting and the cable fastening method would be ideal.

Carbon Charly
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Hi Oekmont.
This was very very kind of you. Thank you very much for your help !
The company who sold me the tube is just seller and not manufacturer. I will ask them that they schould ask their supplier to get more info about the tube. Which parameters would be the most important ones to make a detail calculation?
br

P.s. Oek + Mont = Leoben ?


BR
Carbon-Charly

Edited 6 Years Ago by Carbon Charly
oekmont
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Just to make this clear: this is not even close to a complete analysis. I am just calculating if the carbon rod could withstand the same longitudinal forces induced by a momentum as the aluminium tube. To be safe you would also need a calculation for the mounting points, and a calculation of the strength against shear forces caused by the perpendicular force. And I am only comparing against the aluminium tube. I don't know anything about the forces. And I completely ignore the few non unidirectional fibres.
So let's go:
The cross-section isn't identical. So I calculate W, the axial section modulus.
aluminium: (pi/64*(0,08^4-0,072^4))/0,04= 1.72*10^-5 m^3
CarbonSadpi/64*(0,08^4-0,076^4))/0,04= 9.32*10^-6 m^3
=>the carbon needs to be 1.85 times as strong as the aluminium to take the same load.
almgsi0.5=>260N/mm^2
Your carbon layup in that direction and against compression (the more critical direction) should be about 1300-1400N/mm^2
so just looking at this aspect, it should be sufficient.

Carbon Charly
Carbon Charly
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Carbon Charly - 1/8/2019 7:37:57 PM
oekmont - 1/8/2019 7:24:33 PM
Pullwinded should be a good manufacturing method for this application, as most fibres are at 0° and as far as I can see, the part has to withstand mainly bending.
But without dimensions of the carbon tube, and a more precise definition of "inside unidirectional, outside winded" (how thick is each layer?) This question can't be answered.


sorry I forgot to mention the carbon tube size:

- Length: 2,300mm
- outer diameter: 80mm
- Inside diameter: 76mm
- Wall thickness thus: 2mm




BR
Carbon-Charly

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