Week 8

My work this week was focused on focused on finalizing the new track design using rectangular box section, and modifying the existing mounting components for Futran's track design to work with the new one.  Because we are in the United States, we are realistically only going to be able to source in English dimensions. In order to keep the track dimensions as close as possible this will require us to 2" x 8" box section, as well as 2" x 4" box section tubing to get an overall shape of 8" x 8", which makes the new track dimensions slightly wider horizontally, and slightly shorter vertically. This also makes the gap between tracks slightly smaller, about 112 mm, instead of the 122 mm with the Futran design.  With this part of the track design finished the next two weeks will be focused on designing the truss modifications to fully implement the junction.

 
Figure 1: New track cross section with modified mounting.

 
Figure 2: Old Futran track cross section and mounting. 

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