Me459 Pontoon Quick Release Mechanism

8/10/2019 Me459 Pontoon Quick Release Mechanism

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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

Mechanical Engineering

By

Mitul Patel (303235028)

Sarthak Patel (303234573)

Prashant Tilara (303234521)

Mehulkumar Patel (304393107)

Brijesh Patel (303212252)

Fall 2014

In


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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


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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 StatementDisabled 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.


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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 eightinches, 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.


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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 sideof 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.


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MATERIALS AND COMPONENTS

1. 2x Aluminum Pulleys and 2x big Rubber Pulleys

2. Rope Cleat Rotating Cam

3. Fiber Rope

4. Rope Guide5. 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


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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.


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FINAL NEW DESIGN

In the beginning, our team had three different ideas like constructing a new design with differentmechanism 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 wecame up with suitable new idea that we would apply in old design to lift and release the pontoonseasily. what we have done the changes are like all the pulleys angle and position have beenchanged. We also attached the pulley directly to the pontoon and is making semi circle for rope sothat force require to pull pontoon get less.

TOP VIEW

SIDE VIEW


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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 pulleyon wooden plate. With this new design we found that the force require to pull the full is very lessaround 80N which is twice time less then the force required in the previous design also the tensionin rope is less.


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FORCE REQUIRED AND CALCULATIONS

In New design the force required for pontoon to be fully functional is 80N which is twice timeslower 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 pullthe pontoon downward so we have made few changes in design. During the testing we had tochange the pulley angles and pulleys many time as pulleys were not getting fixed and if get fixedthen too much force was required to pull the pontoon. Another problem was the hook to which therope 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 onframe and fixed the pulleys at an proper angle so that the force require is less and pontoon can belocked and unlocked easily.


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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


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Nt = Na + 2

=(10 +2) x 0.035 = 0.42

The maximum force the spring can take occurs when thespring is deformed all the way to its solid height.

= 2.60 ( 3 -0.42) = 6.73 lbf

BOUYANCY FORCEArchimedes principle states that the buoyant force of an object submerged in a fluid is the same asthe 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

X (Inch) Fspring (lbf)

0 0

1 6.73

1.5 10.095

2 13.46

2.5 16.825

3 20.19

3.5 23.555

4 26.92

4.5 30.285

5 33.65

5.5 37.015

6 40.38


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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 grou p of hungry engineers are capable of

doing. Teamwork was vital with this project and all of us that worked on it have been exposed tothis 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.


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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

Me459 Pontoon Quick Release Mechanism

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