Memorandum

To:
From:

Buzzards Bay Yacht Racing Club (BBYRC)

Aubrey Morgan, Director
WPI Material Selection Project Team 3 in ES 2001

Date:

March 30, 2014

RE:

Choice of material for rod rigging

We have reviewed your request and are more than happy to assist you in
finding a new material. We have reviewed your requests would like to share
our findings. We started looking into the group of materials you requested as
well as the current Nitronic 50. We found good aluminum, magnesium, and
titanium alloys as well as four types of fiber-reinforced composites.
We would like to share a few assumptions we made during our analysis of
the materials. First, we maximized the elastic stretch of each cable to one
inch. Maximizing the stretch minimizes the material used, minimizing the
weight. Also, we assumed that the rigging would be used in both salt water
and fresh water. This eliminated the possible use of magnesium alloys (listed
in orange in Appendix A). Magnesium is extremely sensitive to salt water
and would not be durable if used as rigging.
Three of the four compositesDough Molding Compound, Glass Fiber
Reinforced Polymer, and Sheet Molding Compoundwere eliminated because
of weight. They are shown in red in Appendix A. Rods made from these
materials would be significantly heavier than rods made from Nitronic 50,
with no notable advantages. (Appendix A). After we eliminated magnesium
and those three composites, we began looking at the four remaining
materials. Figure 1 shows certain characteristics about a rod made from
each material. We used average material properties in these calculations for
two reasons. It is possible to assure that material has higher quality than the
lower property limit but difficult to get material on the upper property limit.

Figure 1. Summarized table of calculated information for 4 remaining materials.

Average material properties used. Bold represents improvement from Nitronic 50.
Data taken from Appendix A.

The material currently being used for the rigging is wrought, cold drawn
Nitronic 50. Nitronic 50 is extremely water resistant, but it is relatively dense.
Nitronic 50 is also quite durable, rust resistant, and resistant to fracture. Out
of the four remaining materials a Nitronic 50 rigging rod will be reasonably
priced as well as the most durable, but its weight can be improved.
Titanium alloys would be a great material to consider to use for a rod in a sail
boat for many reasons. Titanium has an incredible ratio of strength to
density, meaning that it is strong but still light. Titanium would do a more
than adequate job for marine use, as it has high resistance to corrosion in
seawater (Titanium Alloys Corrosion and Erosion Resistance. The A to Z
of Materials, March 27, 2002). However, a titanium rod only improves the
rods mass by a miniscule margin. Also, titanium is significantly more
expensive than any of the other three remaining material options. Therefore,
although titanium is very strong and durable, it is likely not a valid switch
from Nitronic 50.
Carbon fiber reinforced polymer, or CFRP, would be great to consider for this
application. CFRP is strong and stiff but also lightweight, specifically in
comparison to metals. Since it is a polymer instead of a metal, CFRP is not
affected by seawater. A rod made of CFRP would be considerably lighter
than a rod of any other material. One downside of CFRP is the price, which is
notably higher than the price of Nitronic 50but still lower than titanium. A
rigging rod made of CFRP would be a good choice because it is very light but
still strong.
The final material we considered for use is age-hardening wrought aluminum.
The lower property limit of aluminum (shown in yellow in Appendix A) would
cause permanent deformation before an elastic stretch of one inch. To
account for this, we set the stress on the aluminum equal to the maximum
stress possible without permanent deformation. From this, we modified the
dimensions of the rod and calculated the amount that the rod would stretch.
Aluminum is the only material which improves on both weight and price from
the current Nitronic 50, making it a valid option.
One final note which we would like to make about both the CFRP and the
aluminum lies in their durability. Both materials have adequate fatigue
strengths, which will allow them to survive any cycles of tension and
compression that will be put on them. However, the materials would
potentially be susceptible to fracture from internal and external flaws; they
have lower fracture toughness than Nitronic 50. If the potential of flaws
causing fracture is worrying, the rods can be manufactured with a larger
diameter. For flaws to cause fracture, they would have to be relatively large
with respect to the diameter of the rod, but care in manufacturing and
regular monitoring of equipment can assure durability of the rod at the
current suggested diameter.

After reviewing your constraints and objectives and comparing them to our
observations and calculations, two materials stand out as potential
candidates for the rod rigging. As can be seen from figure 1, an aluminum
rod will significantly improve cost and slightly improve mass in relation to the
Nitronic 50. Also, a CFRP rod can reduce the weight significantly more than
the aluminum, but it costs a good amount more than Nitronic 50. Our final
recommendation is that if you are willing to spend the extra money on the
CFRP, it is your best material for the rod rigging.
We appreciate your interest in our recommendation and hope that you have
found information that you are looking for.

Appendix A: Information about Each Material

(Economic and Material Properties obtained from CES EduPack, 2013, Granta Design
Limited)
High Upper limit of values
Low Lower limit of values

Variables universal for each material:

F = 2000lbf
L0 = 50ft = 600in

Certain formulas in the table are derived from the following base formulas:

=E

d 2 d2
A 0= r 2= ( ) =
2
4

F
A0