@IFRs, the OP's not hydroforming. My quick FEA spits out around .25" max deflection for a 18"x36" steel plate (roughly scaled from illustration). Unless the plate's in danger of buckling or yielding, that's definitely a small deflection. If you got a large deflection for a result, you'd know it...
What I'd really do is create a complete 3D model with proper loads and constraints, run FEA, and just use Roark/Moody to validate the results. Now that everyone and their mother has FEA built into their CAD system, it's so quick and easy it seems foolish not to use it for quick iteration of your...
@kingnero,
Because OP's loading is even pressure and not a concentrated load, the deflection is the same for the beam method no matter the width. I would choose a width of 1 inch to drop a dimension out of the calculations.
While the mirror tool in a part creates a constraint, mirror in an assembly just creates new parts and does not constrain them. So, after you have used the mirror tool to create the new parts, you will still have to go in and manually constrain the L and R parts to each other. I'm guessing that...
I read an article about something like this, I think in Wired magazine. The employer had a slew of engineering knick knacks and the prompt was just "tell me everything you can about this object." There was no way to study for it except to get practical experience in your field. One of the...
Bridgebuster, I was browsing through this old thread and took a look at the document you posted.
The title text of that official document is totally written in one of the fonts from Star Trek! I was tickled.
Overrun, we didn't use thermal grease, at least in part because they're messy and these assemblies were in optics. Based on experience installing computer heatsinks with silver grease it may be difficult to get a thin, even application of grease or adhesive with such a large surface. Heat...
It looks like a gimbal arm would also be too big. The arm would be something like the attached picture, coming into or out of the page w.r.t. your diagram so as to dodge your target, but the overall envelope of the machine still have to go to center, just on a different plane. You won't need to...
Does this linkage need to control both position and angle? At least it would be possible to use a pantograph linkage to translate circular motion, but it would be necessarily very large. It does appear that any linkage that traces an arc will not also point your block at the correct angle. Can...
It sounds like you're looking for a goniometer stage: https://www.google.com/search?q=goniometer+stage&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=995&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=WhmdVfiEOozfoAT7y7uQBg&ved=0CDQQsAQ
I worked with power electronics packaging in a past life, so here's my two cents. You can't just sandwich a ceramic block in there and expect to get good heat transfer at the interfaces because they're not compliant. I would use a copper sheet (or aluminum for cost) for the bulk of the material...
I was able to arrive at a solution through two methods. First, I used a combination of simple moment of inertia equations for cylinders and cones to get to the shape of a chamfer. Second, I integrated over the radius with a thin tube as my differential element. I was able to get identical...
