Press Design

[beansnow]

Just thought I'd show you guys the design we came up with. Its a rip off of kublai (and others)(def the best way to do it, thanks guys). This is W8X31 wide flange I beam for the top and bottom. The channel is C6X13.

When we did the FEA on it we could only get a 1.3 factor of safety out of it. We think part of the issue is how we modeled the restraints, that it doesnt allow for compliance of the material becuase they are modeled as 100% rigidly fixed. To be safe we are actually going to build it out of W8X40 I beam. We also modeled the pressure from the fire hose over a larger area than will actualy be the contact patch so there is some concervativeness in there too. Oh yea and we didnt draw the channel as structural channel which adds strength since there is no tight radius in the corners.

I got the steel quoted at about $1000 new, hopefully i can find some stuff at local scrap yards to cut down on the cost.

I'll post some FEA pics when i get a chance and sme more pics when its built.

Thanks to everyone for the rediculous amount of knowlege on the forums. This is a great community of "wicked smaht kids" as they say here in Boston.

[bigKam]

the design looks nice! show the FEA results. what's the area over which the pressure acts? and how much pressure are you designing for?

$1000 for new steel isn't bad. i paid $390 total for used: channel, two 10x26, and two 12x26. the beams were around 100" long. just had to remove rust -- no big deal. the most pain in the rear thing about them was carrying them home on my bike .