May be merit to in front of the beam and below, but does an unstayed rig on a seemingly massive beam need a dolphin striker? Thinking more about a striker like post that extends below the main beam may provide the necessary support for a cup/pod/mast base.
What is the different between having the whole cup above the beam or halve halve on top and halve below it ? I only see the later setup as making the mainbeam weaker as you will be taken away material to let the mast pass through the beam.
Not doubting you Wouter but do you really think this adhesive will work? Or is it, let's prove it won't work? It certainly seems very simplistic
It does doesn't it ? But there are three reasons why I think it is something we should try.
-1- The most sought after aircraft used on dirtstrips in Africa is the F-27 transport plane. It is a design from the late 40's early 50's and because it was designed and made in a country devastated by the WW2 they could not use rivets. Didn't have the machines for it. So they tried metal glue to glue the whole plane together. These planes (average age = 45 years) are still going strong despite being used for decades on rough dirt strips for decades. That is after they were sold off by western airlines completing their commercial life there. Alot of metal glue development came from these airplanes. Before carbon application most race cars where made of glued together alu components.
-2- experiences with my own beams. I glued several repairs and they held up. My mast rotation arm is made from glued together alu components as well, that was after the bolts and rivet original design failed (broke)
-3- I used too much (plain) sealant on my F16 beams. This year I had to take my boat apart and it was a huge task to get the beams to seperated from the hulls. We eventually just spooned as much sealant out as we could before seperating the parts. At one corner we failed, hull was making large cracking noices and just left that beam in place. This was not even a real glue but just plain sealant. That got me thinking. Why would it be so hard to seperate those beams. The only reason was that was so much surface area that even a rather small amount of sticking per square "whatever" would be multiplied into very large holding forces. This is the same trick that flies jump jets. The underpressure per square inchs is less then a baby sucking but becuase their is so many square inches in total on the wing it can carry many tons of weight. Glue works in the same way. Actually soldering works in the same way as well. You don't need high strength per se just sufficient surface area.
So now I'm at the point where I'm convinced that we should proof that this setup doesn't work. We may all be very surprised. Having said this some extra care need to be given to the shapes of the objects as glue normally doesn't withstand tensile stresses very well. So you don't want flat surfaces but rather curved surfaces as here nearly all the loads will be taken up by shear stresses in some part of the glue layer instead of tensile stresses. Round objects seem very attractive here.
Plus we must also not forget that the F12 is a small craft with mostly very modest loads. If glue works then this boat is a prime candidate.
Lets face it, if it works then this is a major breakthrough for the F12 design. Production will then become exceptionally easy and lightweight.
Not doubting you Wouter but do you really think this adhesive will work?
I really do think that it will work.
Afterall glue is currently holding the A-cat beams to many the A-cat hulls at this time as well. So the principle is not in doubt, the question is whether it will also work in our application. But even then we can make the components bigger (more surface area for the glue) till the setup does hold.
read thsi info sheet for more info :
Araldite glue info sheet Wouter
