Towertalk
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [TowerTalk] Mast Wall Thickness

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Mast Wall Thickness
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 05:47:07 -0800
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On 2/24/14 9:39 AM, Chris Pinholster wrote:
I have been researching tower mast material. Both aluminum and
steel.

If aluminum 60601 tubing with 2"OD and .125 wall fails at 35000 ps,
what happens when you increase wall thickness?

Not much it might seem, as it happens. The outer part of the wall carries the peak stress and fails first (think about holding a bunch of spaghetti in your hand and bending it.. which strands break first?)

This kind of thing goes as the 4th power of the radius.

To the first order, you could estimate it as

1^4 - 0.875^4  =0.414 -> 1/8" wall

1^4 - 0.75^4   =0.684 -> 1/4" wall

about 60% more strength for about twice as much metal.


If you increase the thickness of the mast wall, wouldn't that
increase make a difference in the bend or failure rating? The charts
at the metal company I visited seemed to indicate that would be true.
(I was looking at aluminum 2"OD and 1.5"ID)

Also I ran across a chart that showed that using a 14 ft mast, with 4
ft inside the tower and 10 ft above was stronger than an 11 ft mast
with only 1ft inside the tower and 10 ft above.

Any opinion or science from this learned group?



CHRIS PINHOLSTER k4win@mac.com



_______________________________________________



_______________________________________________ TowerTalk mailing
list TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk


_______________________________________________



_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>