FEA of a Wingmast

Over the weekend I caught up with Paul Steinert, my co-presenter of a paper we did for the 1994 (that damn long ago?) MACM composites conference.  The paper was a finite element study of a wingmast, designed with no shear web in it.  I had a hunch that if you took the material that was the typical shear web and put it on the walls of the wing mast, you could increase strength and stiffness while decreasing weight.  To acomplish shear transfer, there would be bulkheads placed at certain locations in the mast.  I built and tested models, with good results, but I wanted an FEA study to confirm and Paul did it.  The nested curved plate equations exploded in later versions of Word so I did not push it ahead.  And some of the screen shots are gone forever.  It was done for plywood, but results are just as valid for composite.  I will repair the file and publish soon.

fea study of a wingmast

One thought on “FEA of a Wingmast”

  1. kurt,
    I look forward to hearing more about experience with my analysis. Particularly the locations where local reinforcement might be suggested. Like we always say “details make the difference”
    paul steinert

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