CHAMP WEDGIE

Last crawled date: 1 year, 10 months ago

This handrail clamp was designed to allow for wide variations in tolerances. The male portion of the clamping mechanism is thin to limit weight, yet take advantage of the compressive strength greater that 1300lbf. The tips of the male portion have a very slight interference fit with the rail creating a slight snap-fit to the rail. The female portion just clears the handrail and is slid axially along the handrail to engage the male tapered ramp. Once engaged, further axial movement along the ramp will increase the compressive forces on the male portion creating ever increasing friction between the handrail and the male portion. The female portion experiences increasing compressive forces and flex forces. This is desirable in that the flex strength and compressive strength are considerably higher than the tensile strength. Tensile stresses cannot be completely avoided, but they are minimized. The build orientation is such that both components can be printed in a single printing side by side. The total estimated weight of the 3D printing is less than 100 grams. This build orientation further enhances the interlocking, as each print layer serves as a micro locking mechanism between the male and female portions. The only potential difficulty with this clamp is that if the wedges are force together with to much effort, it will increase the difficulty of separating the two components. A hard stop could be added to the design to limit over compression, but is not currently a part of it.