Imagine your esk8 floating in the air with arrows poking at it.
Weird, but it’s exactly what’s needed to calculate the loads.
Make sure to catch the full picture, before diving into the loads.
And, while you are here, hit subscribe at the upper right corner.
Loads are nothing more than forces and moments which act throughout your part or structure. To calculate those, we need to know the supports and the reactions.
Supports
Supports are the places where your thingy (part/structure) meets the world.
These can be of two kinds – those which support forces - simple support.
And those which support forces and moments - clamped.
Esk8 deck is connected to the trucks, which are in turn supported by the wheels. Wheels can roll and can’t hold moments – this is simple support.
My binding design is held by the aluminum profile and the bolts. This resists the applied loads and stays in place – this one is clamped.
Reactions
These are the forces/moments which develop at the supports.
The cool thing about it, is they must balance the external loads exactly.
For simple support we must find the reaction force.
For clamped support we need to find the force and the moment.
Sounds complicated?
Let’s see if the following pictures clarify this a little bit:
Let's do another one, this time simply supported:
Ok, so now what?
Once the loads and the reactions are known, we just need to sum these up from left to right.
This is a simple task for Excel, or a piece of paper.
Here is the binding piece:
And the short deck:
So what?
The last two pictures are important.
If the forces and moments are known, you can design the structure to hold them.
Let's find out how next week.
Enjoy,
Dani
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PS
I’m doing something new here.
A short series of posts dedicated to designing your own, as strong as you want, structures.
I’ll cover the basics, so you can do the rest.
Let me know what you think: dani@dosimplecarbon.com