SSA 9 — ”Tetris”

Emil
December 18, 2019

Eindhoven University Of Technology

Department Of Mechanical Engineering

Goals
The goal of this SSA was to search an information how we shuold send the final design as
well as research a way how can we put everything into the box.

Conclusion
Happily everything fits perfect. Only the long vertical beam if we use one whole part we
will have some problems but if it 300mm we can put it diagonally. I did not have time to
put them in an NX format before the deadline. So tomorow I will look into this as well.

Problems
No problems met

Recommendations/Next Step
Clear all unknowns about dimensions and parts.

Time Spent
1.5 Hours

Overleaf Link
https://www.overleaf.com/read/cstmsqptcjsb

1
Main Content
1 General Theory
In this section the basic physics concepts which will be used to model the trebuchet will be
explained. Such as basic physics laws, some mechanics one and finally rotational.

The most important law when describing resultant forces due to motions is the second New-
ton’s law. It states that the total force transferred by a moving body is equal to its mass
times its acceleration. This formula is essential for the explanation of the force created by
the counterweight due to gravitational acceleration. However, this design does not make use
of the linear force as much as of the angular momentum. To find it first the linear momentum
should be calculated. The linear momentum is equal to the mass times the velocity of the
object or the integral of the force with respect to time.

Following this the angular momentum can be found. It is not only equal to the cross product
of the length of the rotating arm and the linear momentum, but it is also equal to the moment
of inertia time the angular velocity of the object.(All formulas can be found in appendixes)
~ = ~r × p~ = I~ω
L (1)

1.1 Application of the concept

1.1.1 The path of the projectile
Since the momentum transferred through the arm the basket is known, it is possible the
whole path of the projectile to be described.

Figure 1: A sketch of a projectile launched from a table

This path is described by the motion of the projectile in ”x” and ”y” direction. Since there
is only gravitational force the ”y” component can be defined as in equation 14. Whereas,
for the ”x” component there is no force it can be defined as in equation15. Using these two
formulas it is possible to calculate the time the projectile is in the air and find the distance
travelled17. Brief reflection on these equation shows that the only variable from which the
distance depends is the throwing angle. So combining all of them as well as bearing in mind
the the starting position is not equal to the final one, the optimal angle is described by

2
equation2. With equation 2 and equation 17, The maximum distance can be found for a
certain launching velocity. This expression can be seen in equation 3.
√ 
2
2gHlaunch +vprojectile
θoptimal = arccos √ (2)
2gH launch+2v 2
projectile

q
2
vprojectile 2gHlaunch + vprojectile
dmax = (3)
g

However, all this formulas makes it possible to calculate the distance and optimize the Tre-
buchet, there is still need of an equation describing the force supplied by the counterweight.
This force is expressed in terms of the mass of the counterweight, the height, the gravita-
tional force and B??????The total derivation of the formula can be found in subsection(The
forces on the arm) in appendixes.
q
m 2gh
π
Fmax = (4)
B

1.2 Forces on the arm

First a sketch of the forces at the moment the mass will hit the bucket will be made, see
Fig. 2. In this figure the force FCM is the force of the total mass due to the gravitational
pull. The force Fmax is the force of the mass to the bucket when colliding. These forces can
be calculated by the equation 5

Figure 2: A sketch of the forces at the point the mass will hit the bucket

q
m 2gh
π
Frot = M g + (5)
B

1.3 Shape efficiency

After a huge research done which type of beams will provide stable model as well as will
not need that much material, the results showed that an I-shaped structure will be the best

3
choice, followed by a T-shaped one for the less stressed parts. This type of structures are
very efficient because they keep the center of mass at the middle of the beam as well as
provide sufficiently big lateral second moment of area. This moment is very important for
prevention of breaking the beam. These types are implemented into the arm. Since the
structure will be mostly stressed at the place where the counterweight and the arm interact
there will be used an I-shaped beam, whereas for the projectile trowing part a T-shaped
one is thought to be strong enough. The whole research can be found in Appendix - (Shape
efficiency)

Figure 3: The second moment of area can be found on the right after: Iz

1.4 The Tower

While optimizing the model it was unclear whether one tower is strong enough to hold the
weight. To make a decision, 3 types of towers were compared. Firstly, design with one tower
of 12x7, secondly a design with 2 of these towers and lastly a design with one larger tower
of 24x7.

Shape Area sideways deflection Second moment of area Ilength

7x12 84mm2 2, 2mm 1008mm4
7x12 twice 168mm2 0mm 2016mm4
7x24 168mm2 1, 1mm 8064mm4

The results show that in fact the design with two towers has the least deflection. Although,
the difference between it and the other two options is very small. That is why in means of
saving a material the 7x12 square shape was chosen. The deformation of the tower is be
calculated using MarcMentat together with Matlab to give the deflection of a 30 cm high
beam, with a width of 7mm and variable length. From this results it was concluded that a
deflection of 4mm is acceptable so the final lenght of the beam was set to be 12mm

2 Appendix
2.1 Formulas - General theory
~ = ~r × p~ = I~ω
L (6)

4
Figure 4: The deflection of the tower plotted against the height of the tower with varying
cross-sectional lengths

X d2 x
F =m·a=m· (7)
dt2
d~p
p~ = m · ~v −→ = F~ (8)
dt

I = m · r2 (9)
ZZZ
I= ρ(x, y, z)|~r|2 dV (10)
Body

F L3
∆B = (11)
3EJ
My
σmax = (12)
I
Hlaunch = H + h + R2 sin(θoptimal ) (13)
Z Z
1
yprojectile = −gdt2 = − gt2 + vprojectile sin(θ)t + Hlaunch (14)
2
Z Z
xprojectile = dt2 = vprojectile cos(θ)t (15)

p
vprojectile sin(θ) + 2gHlaunch + v 2 sin(θ)2
tground = (16)
g
q
2 2
vprojectile sin(θ)cos(θ) + vprojectile cos(θ) 2gHlaunch + vprojectile sin(θ)2
d= (17)
g

5
2.1.1 The forces on the arms
The first step of determining the force of the falling mass on the mass is defining a definition
for the time the falling mass will travel in the air before it will hit the arm. In this case the
height can be defined in terms of the whole time this mass will fall down. The acceleration
of a falling mass, with neglecting the air friction, is equal to the gravitational constant g.
Integrating this twice will will get an expression for the height in terms of the time it will
travel in the air, this expression can be seen in equation 18.
tZ
end
Z
1
h= gdt = gt2end (18)
2
0

Rewriting this expression to an expression for tend gives equation 19.

s
2h
tend = (19)
g
The reason to define tend is due to the fact that the momentum p of the mass is defined as
in equation 20.
p
p = mvend = mgtend = m 2hg (20)
To find an expression for the force of the falling mass on the arm, a function in a form
which is know, and which will look like the the distribution of the force over the time will be
defined. A great function for this is the so called Gaussian function given as in equation 21.
t2
f (t) = Ae− B2 (21)
This Gaussian function looks like Fig. 5, this also looks like force distribution of an collision.
Therefor this Gaussian function will be used to give an expression of the force.
This Gaussian function will be an expression for the force of the falling mass, therefore
equation 22 holds.
t2
F (t) = Ae− B2 (22)
As already stated in equation 8, the force is equal to the derivative of the momentum to
the time. Therefore the Gaussian equation integrated over the time has to be equal to the
momentum of the falling particle, as is derived in equation 23.
Z ∞
t2
Ae− B2 dt = m 2hg
p
(23)
−∞

Solving this for A gives: q

m 2gh
π
A= (24)
B
Therefore the force is given as:

6
 Figure 5: The Gaussian function

q
m 2gh
π t2
F (t) = e− B2 (25)
B
For the only value for the force of interest is the the highest force on the arm. To get a
definition for this, the derivative will be set equal to zero, as in equation 26.
√
m 2gh
dF 2 B
π 2
− t2
=− e B t = 0 (26)
dt d2
This will give a value for t equal to zero, therefore the maximum value of the force is the
factor A, when filling t = 0 in equation 22. The maximum value for the force can be seen in
equation 27.
q
m 2ghπ
Fmax = (27)
B

3 Shape of beams
For the parts where high forces play a role, it is considered necessary that these parts do not
break. To achieve this, a high second moment of area is needed. On the other hand is the
material limit, so a solid square/rectangular beam doesn’t seem like a solution.

To fix this optimization problem, a paper by D. Pasini, D. J. Smith and S. C. Burgess about
Structural efficiency maps for beams subjected to bending was used. This paper tells what
the strongest shape with the least amount of material is. It uses 2 dimensionless properties,
ΨA and ΨI , of the shape that describe the relative ratio of the area and the second moment

7
of area of the cross-sectional shape with respect to a rectangular envelope surrounding the
shape. The paper eventually concludes that an I-shaped beam with an infinitesimally small
web is the strongest shape for the least amount of material when bending occurs around the
x-axis of the beam. On the second place comes the T-shape, since it is essentially an I-shape
without the lower flange.

Figure 6: A graph that plots ΨA on the x-axis, against ΨI on the y-axis. Limit curve 1 gives
the most efficient shape: the I-shape.

3.1 The Arm

For the launching arm, this has several influences. First, the arm where the counterweight
drops on will be made of an I-shaped beam. There will be only one direction that it has
to be strong; namely the vertical direction. This means that the I-shaped beam should
have flanges right above each other and that the web should be as high as possible to in-
crease the distance between the flanges and thus directly increase the second moment of area.

8
The arm was designed and the second moment of area, calculated
√ by SkyCiv, was equal
4
to 1661,6988 mm . The B in formula 5.1.26 is equal to tL , where tL is the time the
Counterweight takes to fall onto the arm. This time can be calculated by using a simple
equation of motion:
1
y(tL ) = H0 − gt2L = 0 (28)
2
When H0 is the height difference the counterweight travels before hitting Rcounterweight , which
is equal to 0.3 m, and tlaunch is calculated, this gives us:
r
2 × 0.3
tL = = 0.247[s] (29)
9.81
Substituting this in formula 5.1.26 gives:
q q
m 2gh π
0.25 2×9.81×0.3
π
Fmax = √ = = 0.688[N ] (30)
tL 0.497
When the maximum force is calculated, it can be put in the formula for the maximum
bending stress:
Mc LF c LF c
σmax = = = (31)
I 2 I 2I
In this formula, L is Rcounterweight , F is Fmax , c is the maximum distance of the beam to the
axis through the centre of mass and I is the second moment of area, calculated by SkyCiv.
Substituting all values gives the following:
0.05 × 0.688 × 0.006
σmax = −12
= 99922.437[P a] ≈ 1 × 105 [P a]  48 × 106 [P a] (32)
2 × 1661.6988 × 10
The bending stress is significantly less than the maximum bending stress, and therefore it
can be concluded that the arm won’t break on impact with the counterweight.

Secondly, the launching arm will be made of a T-shaped beam. The reason why a T-shape
instead of an I-shape is chosen, is because the launching arm will be tapered down to de-
crease the moment of inertia of the arm. This is easier done with the T-shape. Also, since
this arm doesn’t have to be as strong as the counterweight arm (because it only holds the
projectile, which is very light compared to the counterweight) it isn’t much of a problem to
lose some of the stiffness of the beam.