Well considering that I had begun writing this post before my last Sailplane class (Tuesday Afternoon), a lot of exciting things have happened since then. The most exciting being that WE GOT LOTS OF CARBON FROM BOEING!!! If you haven’t been following my blog all semester, let me give you a brief introduction to what on earth I’m talking about. For my AERSP 204H class (otherwise known as Sailplane), our biggest problem as a group has been trying to get carbon to use. Why? Because carbon is a magical material in the world of HPA-building. However, carbon is sort of tricky to handle, due to the fact that it has a “shelf life,” and has to be kept in a freezer to keep in from curing. To learn more about carbon and what it is used for in reference to wing spars, take a look at this website!
Carbon Tubes!
We use carbon for a number of things, the main use being to make carbon tubes for things such as wing spars. Carbon is fairly light and strong, so it is an important aspect for us while building the plane, especially the wing sections. Unfortunately, we were at a bit of a stand still for a while due to the fact that we ran out carbon, and could therefore not make any more tubes.
On the other hand, with the tubes that we do have, we had a heck of a job
Wahoo Angle Grinder!
attempting to remove them from their mandrels. Carbon tubes are baked in such a way that the ply are laid up on a metal “mandrel,” so when they come out of the oven, they are literally baked onto these metal tubes to create their shape. The problem comes when you try to remove the actual carbon tube from its metal mandrel. This is where the fun part starts. Usually to start, we tie ropes around 2x4s and put breather cloth underneath to prevent the wood from scratching the carbon. We then tie the rope in such a way that when we twist the pieces of wood, we tighten the rope’s grip on the tube. We then attach the end of the metal mandrel to some fixed station, so to create a moment on the tube in order to “pop” the carbon off of the mandrel.
*Disaster Waiting To Happen*
Long story short, this isn’t as easy as it sounds, and we have broken several ropes, bent steel bars with or bare hands, and broken through half inch pieces of plywood in our attempts to anchor the mandrel and remove the carbon tubes. Not to mention the time that we literally anchored the end of the hole to the I-Beam that supports our lab. So yeah, that’s always fun, especially when you are literally putting all of your weight onto the 2x4s and the tube still refuses to twist. I have to say though, I don’t feel bad about missing tennis for lab, because attempting to remove these tubes is a workout in itself!!!
Yeah, We Aerospace Engineers Are Pretty Jacked.
I have a hard time with origami, let alone massive fragile airplane components. Your pictures are very helpful to reference as the project gets more and more complex. I had questions after I was done reading, however, like how did you contact Boeing, and how did they give it to you? Was it bought or gifted?
Really in-depth and thorough post!
I found this post very interesting as I am in a similar major (Mechanical Engineering) as think that its awesome that your getting to do this hands on stuff pretty early on. I cant wait to get started on it! I think its great that Boeing was able to help you guys out with your project, and it sounds like your project is going well despite the slight delay due to lack of Carbon. Good luck and I hope the rest of the project goes well!
Wow, I never really thought of what the wings were made of, and I never dreamed the material had to be kept in a freezer! I’m glad Boeing decided to give you that carbon! I have to admit, I don’t envy you. I’m a computer major so everything we do is in the digital world and most of the time if we break something we can just use the back up and copy it, or hit “ctrl+z” but this physically building things (as well as being such a work out) sounds a lot more stressful with materials that could actually snap in two and be unusable! Thank you for the education.