AP Pienaar wrote:

Hi

Where can I go to get help with a fiberglass or Carbon Landing gear

design.

I have a fairly good idea of what it should look like but need to

calculate

the ply count  or if using rofings the thickness that would give the

right

amount of flex versus strength.

Thanks
Pine Pienaar
pine@cpro.co.za
Lancair 360 #664

Vance is pretty good with composite design.

Paul Lamar

Composite, spring landing gears are a bit tricky, and often expensive if
carbon is
used. For these reasons we have in general replaced composite gears with
spring
aluminum designs for kit production. Composite gears suffer in torsion if
you
use UNI or roving, and also in delamination in "bend" radius areas, The
constant
curve "bow" as used in Rutan designs  minimize the delamination problem, and
they use BI overwrap to improve torsion and protect the UNI. The effective
modulus
of elasticity is very sensative to fiber straightness. You can probably save
some weight
and get a lower drag section with composites, but it is labor intensive, and
subject
to greater variability than metal. if you supply me with more information I
might be able to steer you to a starting point.  Vance

 
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