PVC Tube Bearing Tests for a Lab Scale Rocket Fuselage Design
Isabelle Honorato Diniz do Nascimento1; André Faria Formagio Fonseca1; Hendrik Bakkenist1; Bruna Favoretto1; Marlon Sproesser Mathias1; Marcos Vinícius Fernandes Ribeiro1; Marcelo Leite Ribeiro1; Paulo Celso Greco Junior1
1 EESC-USP
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1047
Resumo
In the aerospace industry, weight reduction is of fundamental importance. Thus, it is necessary to know precisely and thoroughly the characteristics of the materials being employed. Within this context, this paper aims to determine a PVC tube bearing stress resistance, that will be used in the design of a small scale rocket fuselage, to which a small rocket engine will be fixed by screws. Most of the stress the structure will be subjected occurs during launch. For this reason, it is crucial for the design of the fuselage to know exactly how much bearing stress is necessary for the tube to suffer permanent strain. It is possible to know the amount of stress through cyclic and monotonic bearing tests. These tests consist on tractioning sideways an equivalent to the real situation screw fixed to the tube wall. It was possible to measure the PVC bearing allowable, confirming its fitness for this use. These experimental results were compared to computational models. From these data, it is possible to calibrate and validate the computational model for future appplications and to optimize the structures dimensions without compromising its reliability.
Palavras-chave: Bearing Test; PVC; Rocket; Finite elements analysis