Saturday, April 16, 2011
Structural Fiberglass Members
TheatreFace: "I’m in the midst of an interesting exercise to complete a feasibility study for an imaginary 24’x32’ revolve that must revolve along a horizontal axis, much like a paddlewheel. (Cool, right?) Moving something like this is going to be all about the torque required to overcome inertia, which is directly proportional to the mass of the platform. This means, of course, that I’ll want to keep the platform—and consequently, the structural members comprising it—as light as possible.
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3 comments:
This made me think back to Kevin saying that steel is lighter than wood in that to support the same load the weight of steel you need is less than the weight of wood. In this sense, I guess this fiberglass is lighter yet...
Mr. Dionne has a specific application in mind for this material, but I think that it'd be a lot of fun to venture outside of the world of wood and steel in our scene shop for academic purposes.
The other alternative to building lighter, though, is to just get a really beefy motor.
Extren has made it's way into entertainment. In Disney world, the World of Color show lighting & pumps are all supported on giant sections of structural fiberglass shapes. The problem is that, just like when moving from wood to steel, you have new connections methods that you need to learn. Besides standard mechanical connections, you have glued connections to consider.
I've been interested in trying out structural fiberglass shapes for quite a while. Like the article says, you have to be prepared to sacrifice some extra dollars to be able to support the same load as with steel, but the weight savings are a pretty good bonus. I will definitely keep this stuff in mind if I ever work somewhere where money is less of an issue.
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