Tonnage?

[sdt7618]

Ok, been watching here for asometime now and hear all these things about 20 ton splitters' 30 tonne, etc etc,

has anybody with more physic knowledge than me worked out what the force and pressure an sledge and wedge will exert?

must be pretty high pressure as the impact face is small.

Example, I am 1.85 m tall, and swing from above my head, say another 0.75m

but hit a block .30m tall, so distance travelled in swing is 2.3m. time taken to swing would be nominal, but lets say 0.1 sec. so accelleration would be 23m/s yes?

so force of my 3.5kg maul would be 3.5kg * 23 =80.5 kg/ms2 or 80.5 newtons

Pressure would be for my maul, with a head of say 2mm thick ( at sharp end) by 100mm ( area =0.002*0.1 =0.0002m2) so pressure would be 80.5N / 0.0002m2 = 402500Pa's which equates to circa 58.37 psi.

so how does this compare?

and I know there are a million diffrent variables here, like force of swing, exact measurements. just kicking this around in my head and wondered how mother natures body compared to splitters!!

 

[sdt7618]

yup yup yup!!

supposed to be working!! not sure how I would justify a chainsaw etc site on a quantity Surveyors computer!!

I also know there are alot of smart guys on this site, someone must have thought about this before also.... I mean somebody even turned their splitter into a self propelled one!!!!! :jester:

 

[Patrick62]

Oh really???

I have never cut a tree down with a 50 cal machine gun, the Army has.
The bullets weigh a ounce? What is the velocity?

Do a search on impact splitters here. There is a fella who made one that works that way. Very effective, and efficient.

-Pat

 

[Ed*L]

This might help you.......if not it's still interesting. You can get a good idea of why your thumb hurts so much when you smash it with a hammer.

http://www.columbiamt.com/Utilities/Hammer_force.htm

Ed

 

[PA Plumber]

This might help you.......if not it's still interesting. You can get a good idea of why your thumb hurts so much when you smash it with a hammer.

http://www.columbiamt.com/Utilities/Hammer_force.htm

Ed

Interesting...

My thumb doesn't hurt as much as my broken hand.

Just happened to hit it with a hammer last Friday removing the old crown from my chimney.

20 oz. hammer. Swing distance approx. 3 feet. Thickness of crown near one of the terra cotta stacks was about 10", so I was really swinging to get the chisel through all that.

 

[drmiller100]

you are solving for energy, and psi.

the energy comes from the weight and velocity of the hammer just before it hits the block of wood. how long or how far it takes the hammer to reach that velocity does not matter.

on the face of the wedge, the only thing that really matters is how "wide". the sharper the wedge, the further into the wood it drives, but the further you have to drive it before the wood splits.

if you are short on energy, use a sharper wedge. if you have plenty of energy and want it to split faster, use a bigger angle wedge.

 

[sdt7618]

Breakfast

If I get short on energy maybe I should just eat my porridge in the morning!!

I wasn't really interested in the force require to split the wood just the pressure exerted on the top of the point of the wedge.

not that any of this really matters, if I can drive a wedge into the wood, will just saw it, was only kicking this around, and wondered if anyone else had thought about it?