"Understanding Aircraft Composite Construction"

Is anyone familiar with this book, or if there is a better selection out
there to help me decide how large to make my wing ribs?

http://www.aeronautpress.com/book1prev5.htm

The ribs of the Dyke Delta are composed of a stainless steel rib cap
made of .015 thick 321 stainless. It's formed into a U channel with the
sides being double thickness. The bottom of the U is not square, but
must maintain a 4 degree offset.

The rib struts are made of 3/8" piper channel, and everything is held
together and to the spars with nickel-silver brazing. The fiberglass
wing skin is then riveted to the rib caps.

John Dyke, the designer, is on record that the structure could possibly
be made lighter and stronger through the use of more composites. What I
want to investigate is how big I would need to make a composite hat
section to equal the strength of the stainless rib cap, and how big
would a box channel be to equal the piper channel's strength. From that
I can calculate the weight tradeoff, and hopefull have a much easier
construction effort.

PS. My brazing doesn't look so good.
--
----Because I can----
http://www.ernest.isa-geek.org/
------------------------

Ernest Christley wrote:

Is anyone familiar with this book, or if there is a better selection out
there to help me decide how large to make my wing ribs?

http://www.aeronautpress.com/book1prev5.htm

The ribs of the Dyke Delta are composed of a stainless steel rib cap
made of .015 thick 321 stainless. It's formed into a U channel with the
sides being double thickness. The bottom of the U is not square, but
must maintain a 4 degree offset.

The rib struts are made of 3/8" piper channel, and everything is held
together and to the spars with nickel-silver brazing. The fiberglass
wing skin is then riveted to the rib caps.

John Dyke, the designer, is on record that the structure could possibly
be made lighter and stronger through the use of more composites. What I
want to investigate is how big I would need to make a composite hat
section to equal the strength of the stainless rib cap, and how big
would a box channel be to equal the piper channel's strength. From that
I can calculate the weight tradeoff, and hopefull have a much easier
construction effort.

PS. My brazing doesn't look so good.
--
----Because I can----
http://www.ernest.isa-geek.org/
------------------------

Gimme a break, Ernest!

That dam delta is built like the Brooklyn bridge!

Legend goes that John Dyke wanted to try composites, but the
FAA laughed at him and said no way.

With all the long single curved surfaces, the thing begs to
be built from aluminum.

It could be a lot lighter structure.
Probably a lot easier to build too.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong...

Richard

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 18:08:04 +0000, Ernest Christley wrote:

snip

I agree that this thing is a tank, and I like it that way. A double steel
cage protects you if you go down in the trees, vs the layer of aluminum
foil that you'd have in a Cessna 150.

I'm confused about that FAA comment, though. It's my understanding that
the FAA can laugh all they want, but they don't really have the power to
say yay or nay in regards to material choice. Of course, that may have
been the case 40yrs ago when the design first came out; however, glass
has progressed quite a bit since that time and it is my understanding that
the FAA has progressively moved to a 'just check the paperwork stance' and
is less into checking the actual details.

snip

I personally chose Jyhn Dyke's design because it's primary structure is
not composite. Just a personal preferance tho'.

I did hear that the reason John did'nt design it in glass is that it is
just much easier to do a structural analysis on tube than glass.

Thats my bit,

Mike