Superleggera Construction
While your LGMI Board leadership is busy working on the administrative organization of the Light Green Machine Institute going forward, they asked me to continue to offer up items for you to ponder.
Patented by Carrozzeria Touring in 1936, the superleggera system consists of a structural framework of small-diameter steel tubes that conform to an automobile body's shape and are covered by thin alloy body panels that strengthen the framework (from Wikipedia).
What does this have to do with building paper machines?
Hold on tight as we glimpse into how my brain works...
If one thinks about the relationship of an automobile to the road, one sees two components: (1) the road of course, be it dirt, gravel or a hard surface such as asphalt. Then we have (2) the automobile on top. Automobile designers, from the very beginning of the auto age, have strived for lightweight, high horsepower in order to achieve speed.
Mechanically, what is a paper machine other than the road surface and automobile flipped upside down? In our case, the "road surface" is the paper web, from headbox to reel, and the "automobile" is the heavyweight structure largely beneath it.
Some of you will argue about an important difference. That difference is, in the first case, that the road surface is attached to the foundation of the road and in the second case, it is the paper machine that is attached to the foundation. These are important points, but ones that should not throw up insurmountable problems, at least in the hypothetical case.
What we have being saying for over a decade here at the Light Green Machine Institute is that paper machines and their concomitant components are too heavy and hence too costly. Additionally, they limit our design concepts and thinking. Traditionally, being tied to the foundation, if we needed to add more weight, we simply upped the pile count beneath the machine. We have used the foundation as an excuse for our corpulent machines.
Thinking about the machine upside down, not linked to the foundation, and studying the nearly ninety year old concepts of superleggera construction, we ought to be able to radically improve the design of paper machines.
And one more thing. I have known some dirt track racers over the years. Before every race they spray their entire automobile, especially the underside, with dishwashing detergent. They tell me even in dry conditions, an automobile can pick up several hundred pounds of dirt during a race. The dishwashing detergent keeps it from sticking. Do we have any applications where this idea will help?
Of special note...
In a couple of months, we will be moving this column to the Light Green Machine Institute website. There is not much there right now, but you might as well get signed up and start thinking about moving over there. It is at
www.lightgreenmachine.institute.
