Just by adding a rivet in the handle Pratical Solution was able to strengthen a weak connection in the greenhouse by a factor 2. Not the handle is now the weak factor bu the hook of the gutter on which the handle is hanging on the gutter. The handle is an aluminum extrusion product with a small nod in its design. When the handle is pulled away from the gutter this nod causes instability of both the walls of the handle. Just by connecting both nods with a simple screw or rivet this failure mechanisme was not possible anymore making the construction collapse at a twice higher force.
By inventing a new kind of console Practical Solution was able to reduce the horizontal bending away of the gutter at the glazing stadium. During glazing part of the greenhouse has no glass in it. Due to the weight of the glass the hood of the greenhouse wants to prolapse. This makes the gutters to bend away lowering the space of the glass to be placed in the next hood. By making a stronger console this horizontal bending could be reduced a lot. By making connections stronger the weight of a greenhouse could be reduced by 15%. Here you can read more.
The Anne Frank chestnut tree became very famous after the second world war. Anne Frank a Jewish child could only see part of this tree when she hide for the Germans in the second world war. Due the fact Dutch people wanted to protect this tree a steel auxiliary construction was placed to keep the tree upright. One of the legs is not visible in the drawing. Due to design errors this construction reduced the tree its flexibility (at high wind the tree must bend away from the wind) and caused the breakdown of this tree. Also the way this steel construction was welded to pipes hammered into the ground was wrong. A further explanation can be read here.
A temporary scaffolding used in the Amer Power plant to clean the walls of the plant with grit blasting collapsed because there was no support structure to the wall of the power plant. The problem is the triangular base structure. Due to the use of closed floors grit could cause a weight unbalance. That is why lower floors of this scaffolding should have horizontal supports to the wall of the power plant. With these extra supports you could stabilise the unstable triangle support structure. Abutments (braces) could not stabilise the first floor. You can read more here.
When I was busy making a spread sheet calculation for the forces on suction tubes (dredging industrie) i heard of a customer who had problems with a not functioning turning piece. The turning piece makes it possible to let the digging head of the suction tube following the seabed maximising dredging speed. I looked at the drawing of a turning piece and saw what the problem was. I told this to my boss. When he returned from a visit to this customer he showed me foto’s showing my asspumtion was right. A pulling force is lead through the turning piece at the toothed area. This is a stiff part of the turning piece due to high steel thickness. The bending moment is lead through by a pipe in pipe construction. Due to rough way of working the customer exceeded the design limits. The pipe in pipe constrcution was not stiff enough. Due to this the red stiff hooked part could rotate compared to the blue stiff hooked part. Due to sharp angles the turning piece got stuck maybe by some sand. Just with some small design changes customers can be able to operate the turing piece also outside design parameters. This improves he reliability of your product for your customers. Here you can read more.
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