PONTOON : QUICK RELEASE MECHANISM

A Project Report
Presented to
The Faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering
California State University, Los Angeles
Under the guidance of
Dr. Samuel Landsberger

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science
In
Mechanical Engineering
By
Mitul Patel (303235028)
Sarthak Patel (303234573)
Prashant Tilara (303234521)
Mehulkumar Patel (304393107)
Brijesh Patel (303212252)
Fall 2014

Contents
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................................................................ 4
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 5
OBJECTIVES................................................................................................................................................... 6
Problem Statement........................................................................................................................................ 6
PONTOON ....................................................................................................................................................... 7
HISTORY ......................................................................................................................................................... 8
FUNCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 9
MATERIALS AND COMPONENTS............................................................................................................10
PREVIOUS DESIGN AND PROBLEM .......................................................................................................11
FINAL NEW DESIGN ...................................................................................................................................12
FORCE REQUIRED AND CALCULATIONS .............................................................................................14
TESTING/RESULTS .................................................................................................................................14
SPRING FORCE CALCUALTION ...............................................................................................................15
BOUYANCY FORCE ................................................................................................................................16
CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................................17
REFERENCE .................................................................................................................................................18

ABSTRACT
Aid to the California Adaptive Rowing Program
Pontoon : Quick Release Mechanism
The California Adaptive Rowing Program is a non-profit organization which operates in Long
Beach, CA and provides instruction and training for the sport of rowing to physically or mentally
challenged persons. Boats used by the program are modified from the standard rowing boat setup in
order to provide additional safety measures and/or customized seating requirements for each participant.
Since the current inventory of pontoon do not meet the specific needs of some individuals in the program,
Cathleen Yampolsky, who the coordinator of the program, expressed the desire to create a new quick
release mechanism of pontoon which could help the rowers to fix and release the pontoon easily. The
goal of this project was to devise Quick release pontoon mechanical system that could be adapted to the
existing boat which would allow the rowers and veterans to use for rowing sports.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank Dr. Samuel Landsberger for his suggestions, guidance, and
assistance with using the machining tools throughout the project. We would also like to express
our gratitude to all those who helped us to complete our project and also feel thankful towards our
colleagues for their valuable suggestions and help.

INTRODUCTION
Pontoons are cylindrical shaped objects that have the ability to float on water, and due to this
characteristic, they were often used for large structures that required staying afloat. This included
buildings and bridges that had to achieve this objective, whether permanently or temporarily. With
such a useful trait, it was not long before some individuals hooked onto the idea of using pontoons
to construct vessels that could stay afloat on water and transport humans and goods as well. The
end result was the pontoon boat.

Despite the differences in uses and needs, they generally consist of the same generic design, with a
deck built on top of the two cylindrical pontoons. The sizes of the decks and pontoons are
dependent on the activity the boat is built for, and they can be made from many different types of
material, such as wood, fiber etc. The main objective of these pontoons are that it prevents boat or
kayak from flip and increase the stability.

OBJECTIVES
This is our main objective that designs the most suitable pontoons for the clients. Here is our list of
objective:

Fixing new parts of the pontoon.

Flexibility.

Light weight.

Rowers can exit with pontoon with our current design.

Design a less expensive pontoon.

Problem Statement
Disabled citizens are given free rowing lessons which require the use of customized devices to
ensure the safety of its clients. Problems with previous design was that all the pulleys were fixed at
different angle and it was very hard to pull the pontoon in a downward position and the straight
pulling of rope through hook and complex turn of rope. We will create a new mechanism that will
allow the pontoons swing up out of the water and making it easier for the disabled rowers to pull
the pontoons downward easily when it needed.

PONTOON
Pontoon : It is a floating structure or flat bottom that is used for support.
With the pontoons fitted the boat almost zeros the chances for boat to flip, a real benefit when learning to
scull or if you row on cold water where falling in would be a serious hazard.

A pontoon is a flotation device with buoyancy sufficient to float itself as well as a heavy load.
A pontoon boat is a flattish boat that relies on pontoons to float. Pontoons may be used on
boats, rafts, barges, docks, airboats, hovercrafts, floatplanes or seaplanes. Pontoons may support a
platform, creating a raft. A raft supporting a house-like structure is a houseboat. A fixed platform
can be used as a dock. Common boat designs are a catamaran with two pontoons, or a trim
ran with three. Pontoons may be simply constructed from sealed cylinders such as pipes or barrels,
or fabricated as boxes from metal or concrete. Pontoon boat drafts may be as shallow as eight
inches, which reduces risk of running aground and underwater damage. The pontoon effect is
when a large force applied to the side capsizes a pontoon boat without much warning, particularly
a top-heavy boat.

HISTORY
The 1952 invention of the pontoon motorboat in the USA is credited to a farmer who lived on the
Horseshoe Chain of Lakes, near Richmond, Minnesota. Who would have thought that attaching a
wooden platform to two round sealed cylinders would evolve into a modern watercraft that is
today known as the Pontoon Boat or Party Barge. Since these boats have become one of the most
popular modes of transportation on the water today, it might lead one to wonder just how the idea
came about and how different they are today. The earlier years have been covered here, but lets
take a look at when they really became popular with traditional boaters and what they have
become today.

Photo of a 1954 Weeres Pontoon courtesy of Stearns History Museum

The beginning of what is now known as the modern Pontoon boat was created by Ambrose Weeres
in 1951. At that time, Weeres was asked by a friend to create a platform out of tubes and oil barrels
that would float in water. His initial boat was basically a plywood sheet secured to 55-gallon steel
drums. Weeres learned that steel pontoons collapsed when they contracted due to cold
temperatures. He redesigned the floats to include a vent tube in each pontoon to allow for
fluctuations in air temperature. The first boat, later named The Empress, sold before Ambrose
even had a chance to name it. In his first year, Weeres constructed four more boats. In 1952 he
founded Weeres Industries and took orders for 40 more boats.

FUNCTION

When boat gets unbalanced due to some obvious reasons there is always fear of getting overturn in
water bodies and pontoon saves people. When this situation occurs the centre line of boat and
gravitational force make some angle as a result one pontoon subtracts its contact with water and
other pontoon suffers with over load but there is buoyancy force from water is acting on other side
of pontoon with overload which will be equal to that of load on pontoon trying to make it stable. If
the load on pontoon is more than buoyancy then there is obvious chance of overturning.

MATERIALS AND COMPONENTS

1. 2x Aluminum Pulleys and 2x big Rubber Pulleys
2. Rope Cleat Rotating Cam
3. Fiber Rope
4. Rope Guide
5. 302 Stainless Steel Extension Spring 4.0 inch length, 0.64 inch diameter and 0.08'' Wire
Diameter.
6. L-shaped Plate
7. U-Bolts

PREVIOUS DESIGN AND PROBLEM

The main function of pontoon is to stabilize boat and kayaks while rowing also prevents it from
getting flip. This pontoon design is actually made for the veterans and disable people who are
interested in rowing sports. But the problem with previous design was that pulleys were fixed at
complex angles and the force required to pull the pontoon downward was more than expected.
Wear and Tear of rope and tension on rope was very high. More than 200N force was needed to
pull the pontoon downward which very difficult for the rowers like veterans and people with
disabilities.

Pulleys are fixed at complex angles and rope is going through Cleat Cam and pulleys so it requires
too much of force to pull the pontoons downward.

FINAL NEW DESIGN

In the beginning, our team had three different ideas like constructing a new design with different
mechanism using Rack and Pinion mechanism, pontoon release by crank shaft and using
pneumatic pump system. But after lot of discussion, research and guidance from professor we
came up with suitable new idea that we would apply in old design to lift and release the pontoons
easily. what we have done the changes are like all the pulleys angle and position have been
changed. We also attached the pulley directly to the pontoon and is making semi circle for rope so
that force require to pull pontoon get less.

TOP VIEW

SIDE VIEW

ISOMATRIC VIEW

The design was first made in AUTO-CAD and then we started working on different machining
process like drilling, milling cutting of wood and adjustment of cleats cam and big rubber pulley
on wooden plate. With this new design we found that the force require to pull the full is very less
around 80N which is twice time less then the force required in the previous design also the tension
in rope is less.

FORCE REQUIRED AND CALCULATIONS

In New design the force required for pontoon to be fully functional is 80N which is twice times
lower than that of previous design. The reason behind the less force required is that the friction
between the rope and pulleys has decreased. Here the actual force required to pull rope is nothing
but the spring force, weight of pontoon. The force was calculated by force calculation device that
is in our lab.

TESTING/RESULTS
As we are dealing with physically disabled people too much force can cause them trouble to pull
the pontoon downward so we have made few changes in design. During the testing we had to
change the pulley angles and pulleys many time as pulleys were not getting fixed and if get fixed
then too much force was required to pull the pontoon. Another problem was the hook to which the
rope was attached to pull the pontoon but at the end we put the pulley directly attached to the
pontoon at an angle so that we have to apply less force. Finally we fixed the wooden plate on
frame and fixed the pulleys at an proper angle so that the force require is less and pontoon can be
locked and unlocked easily.

SPRING FORCE CALCUALTION

d = Wire Diameter= 0.035 inch

D outer = Outer Diameter= 0.5 inch

E = Young's Modulus of Material

G = Shear Modulus of Material

L free = Free Length=3 inch

na = Active Coils=10
v = Poison's Ratio of Material= 0.3
E= 200GPa
From above information and through equations we can find the value of K.

K = 77 x (0.035)4
8 x (0.465)3x 10

X (Inch)

Fspring (lbf)

6.73

1.5

10.095

13.46

2.5

16.825

20.19

3.5

23.555

26.92

4.5

30.285

33.65

5.5

37.015

40.38

Nt = Na + 2
=(10 +2) x 0.035 = 0.42
The maximum force the spring can take occurs when the
spring is deformed all the way to its solid height.

= 2.60 ( 3 -0.42) = 6.73 lbf

BOUYANCY FORCE
Archimedes principle states that the buoyant force of an object submerged in a fluid is the same as
the weight of the fluid that is being displaced by the object.
Density of water = 1 g/cm3,
Density of Plastic p = 1.2 g/cm3

Volume v = 7181 cm3,

Buoyant force is given by,
Fb = (p - ) g V
= (1.2 1.0) g/cm3 * 9.81 m/s2 *
= 1408.08 N

CONCLUSION

Before we got started on this project for the Fall Quarter, we did not know if we were going to
meet our goals. Sometimes things do not go as planned but we demonstrated that with hard work
and especially good teamwork, anything is possible. We did get started on the project a little bit
late in the quarter and time was out of our hands. We believe that what helped us a lot during our
project was analyzing what we had already. The previous group of engineers had done a fine job
with the fabrication of the pontoons, and with our new ideas we were able to improve the design.
We all thought that by working on the mechanism of the pontoons, we could make a huge impact
on the improvement of the pontoons. At first we thought of creating some sort of locking system
but our proposal changed due to time constraints. So we ended up going with springs and we never
looked back. By doing this we also completed another one of our goals, which was to find a way
where the disabled rowers wont need assistance when exiting the pontoon. With our improved
design we were able to demonstrate what a young group of hungry engineers are capable of
doing. Teamwork was vital with this project and all of us that worked on it have been exposed to
this already. The beauty about working as a team is that when you get stuck on something and run
out of ideas, your other team members are there to back you up and this was so important with this
project. Besides the time constraints, it was not easy to work on the project due to schedule
conflicts within the group but we still managed to pull it off. Going to the CARP in Long Beach
also helped us get a better understanding of what we were working with and getting one on one
interaction with our clients made it easier to figure out what we really wanted to improve. Above
all of our goals, the most important was to gain experience in the rehabilitation field and satisfy
our customers.

REFERENCE
http://everythingpontoons.com/category/everything-pontons
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/42399/recreation_and_sports/understanding_pontoon
_boats.html
http://www.acxesspring.com/spring-force-constant-calculator.html

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhlUdVD4MKg