[TowerTalk] Bird loading and elements

[D. Scott MacKenzie]

There are also aerodynamic loads from wings flapping......

I think the risk at shooting at them is not the release of the load (unless
you were standing under them), but hitting the elements... then it would
certainly be a dynamics problem.

Since the questions was posed as "how many birds does it take to cause an
element to fail...." then a first order statics answer would be
appropriate....

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin, AA6E [mailto:martin.ewing at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 8:21 PM
To: kb0fhp at comcast.net; towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Bird loading and elements


It's a dynamics problem, not only statics.  Those birds are conducting
flight operations after all.  If you shoot at them, they'll all take
off at once, and then you'll be sorry. That's if they jump up to take
off. :-)

-Martin

On 5/4/05, D. Scott MacKenzie <kb0fhp at comcast.net> wrote:
> Actually, determining failure from static bird loading is relatively easy
to
> calculate.  Any introductory statics (or strength of materials) book will
> explain the basic techniques.  It is really only a couple of equations to
> calculate the deflection, and the number of birds required to cause an
> element to fail.  The only things needed are the number of birds, the
weight
> of the birds (easy to estimate from any bird book), the size of the
element
> (diameter, length and wall thickness), and the alloy (it can probably be
> assumed to be 6063-T6).....
>
> The actual calculation is left as an exercise for the student......
>