When do you start adding interior support structures?

[Diderick A. den Bakker]

You may like to have a look at the Tutorial I wrote some years ago: Early SF: tutorial for designers.

[goodduck]

Here is an example of structures design in real life. I do tend to overkill on the structures support, a bit.

[Kugelfang]

Thanks!

Allen, your pictures provided me with much inspiration. At first I was thinking of having as little structure as possible, but now I'm thinking more may be better. I'm warming up to the idea of providing as much internal strength as possible, but keep the build as simple as possible.

Diderick, your tutorial answered some questions forming in my mind regarding the 'style' of the design. I'm just now beginning to think about that.

Airdave, as always, a wealth of information.

Thanks all!

--jeff

[Kugelfang]

Thanks to the responses in the post this is what I've developed for my airship. The internal structural elements are shown in blue. There is an external keel along the bottom (shown in green) which is a historic feature of the airship. I think it will add to the structural integrity, though.

I was concerned about the horizontal fins' (shown in gray) ability to support the rack which in turn supports a whole collection of vertical and horizontal control surfaces. But by extending the fins internally all the way to the central triangular keel, and sandwiching them fore and aft by formers I think they'll have enough strength. Historically these fins had a slight upward slant. I had no idea how to incorporate that if the fins were attached to the outside of the envelope. It's not shown in the picture but it would be easy to incorporate the slant now.

What do you think about extending the internal keel all the way to the front of the ship? I don't think it's necessary and I like the simplicity of all the formers (but one) being of the same size. But I don't really have enough build experience to know one way or the other.

--jeff

[goodduck]

How I took on the fins, and I would take the internal keel up to the front. In picture 3, the holes for the fins frame in the center keel were not cut out in actual model. That where I glue the fins frames.