Take a sheet of paper and roll it into a tight tube.
Support the two ends and pull down in the middle.
It could fail by tearing at the middle of the lower surface, but it
DOES fail by buckling at the middle of the upper surface.
You need to beef up that upper surface. Adding stiffness is one route.
Weak material of a given kind ( steel or aluminum or glass) tends to be
as stiff as strong material of the same kind.
So airplane designers puzzle us innocent bystanders sometimes, by
beefing up a wing with weak material to add stiffness rather than
strength....
Brian Whatcott Altus OK
At 21:39 6/3/98 -0400, you wrote:
>....It's time for the dumb question. Why are there more layers
>on the top rather than the bottom of the canard and wing. It seems most
>airplanes are built with the lower spar cap being the beefyest. Can
>someone explain?
>
>Carlos R.
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