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After learning mig welding 4 years ago, I decided to buy a aluminum spool gun and try to learn to weld aluminum. I have been practicing on scrap and needed a project. On my pressure washing trailer, I have two of those northern landscape wagons (2'x4') that hold my bleach sprayers. The wagon is rusted, the pressure treated desk is rotting away and all tires are flat. I want my first Aluminum project to be building a box(no tires) to mount the sprayer on. The box will be 2'x4' and hold a 35 gallon tank and a 5.5 honda motor with all the fittings. I am thinking of building the box with 1.5x1.5x.125 sq tubing with a 2'x4'x.125 diamond tread plate top. It will be a complete cube with all 6 sides and 12" centered studs on the top. I might move these or add some to be directly under the motor. Reason for the height is so that I can store bleach bottles under the sprayer, taking up less room. Wheels are not needed because I never remove these sprayers anymore. Attached are my plans and some old pictures when the wagons were new. Pricing does not include the tread plate.My questions are: #1 do you think that I am over building this sprayer or is it not beefy enough.#2 do you think that I should use angle instead of tubing#3 do you know aluminums reaction to bleach (online it says pretty good)Thanks in advance!Jake CollinsMiller DVI Attached Images
Reply:Sorry don't have time to do the analysis. I can say that if you seam weld the treadplate to the top of that box, it will significantly strengthen the box.If you just had a normal beam spanning across the two posts (like the drawing), when you put weight on the beam, the top of the beam would compress, the bottom of the beam would stretch. The line in the middle of that beam - there would be no stretching or compression forces. That line is at the center of mass.If you weld tread plate to the top (and its a good weld) the tread plate essentially moves the center of mass up towards the top. This is still the line around which the forces work. So the bottom of the beam, the part that handles the stretching, is now significantly bigger - bigger area means less force per sq inch. Bottom line much stronger.So...Figure out the weight of your sprayer. If you are going to make this into a wagon without suspension, multiply the weight of the sprayer by 6. Make sure your tread plate can support that. The frame work you build around that would just make everything stronger.Assuming 1/8" thick 3003 - 12kpsi with 18kpsi yield, it should be able to support 60lbs per sq ft assuming you leave the braces at 12" spacing. Its actually a little more than 60 (assuming 6x factor of safety, I just rounded down to nearest 10) There are tables called load Tables - that relate how much deflection can be expected with a certain load. assumes the load is evenly spaced. 6061-T6 should be stronger.The biggest issue will be construction techniques. If possible, weld everything in the flat. You want to make some test welds and understand how your welder does on aluminum. It is very very easy to make a superficial weld that has very little tie-in with the base material. Consider pre-heating. If you are going to make test welds on a small coupon, make sure that coupon is at the same temperature as what you will ultimately weld. With aluminum, you can start cold and by the time you get to the end of the coupon everything is nice and hot and melts in. The problem is the beginning is cold. I understand some people actually begin welding on a piece they will cut/grind off later. In my limited experience, not enough wirefeed speed is the number one issue with those learning aluminum. There are tons of horror stories about people examining aluminum trailers only to find that many of the welds flat out failed.One last thing. Aluminum moves when it is welded. You really want to keep everything clamped down to big steel table so that it cools the way you want it.Con Fuse!Miller Dynasty 350Millermatic 350P-Spoolmatic 30AMiller Multimatic 200Hypertherm PowerMax 1000G3Miller Maxstar 200DX |
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发表于 2021-9-1 00:24:15