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Barrel Stiffness Calculation

by James A. Boatright

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blowmeasshole1911
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192 views

Barrel Stiffness Calculation

by James A. Boatright

Uploaded by

blowmeasshole1911
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Barrel Stiffness Calculation

By James A. Boatright Introduction


So that we can better make design decisions, we need to quantify the stiffness of a target rifle barrel. Then we can make more informed decisions in allocating the rifles weight budget within the rules governing a particular type of target shooting. Many small-bore target rifle barrels are made with uniform outside diameters and with barrel lengths between about 20 inches and about 36 inches. We will first develop an expression for the stiffness of a uniform diameter, fairly long and slender, solid steel rod of circular crosssection. Then we will modify that expression to apply to the thick-walled hollow cylinder of our rifle barrel. We will not consider non-cylinder barrel profiles here.

Development
Let the barrel be represented as a solid horizontal rod of uniform circular cross-section and made of a weightless material. The diameter of our barrel is D (in inches). The breach end of the barrel is rigidly clamped into a stout support. A length L (in inches) of the barrel is cantilevered out horizontally from the supporting rigid clamp. Our barrel is supporting a weight W (in pounds) at its distal end. While our barrel itself is weightless, it has the strength and elasticity a typical barrel steel. Youngs modulus of elasticity (E) for this mythical steel is 30,000,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Our barrel is straight both before and after supporting the weight W. While it is supporting the weight W at its end, our cantilever barrel bends and sags by a small vertical distance B (in inches) at its muzzle end. The bending sag B is only a few thousandths of an inch, and our barrel is certainly well within its elastic limits. Let us further assume that the shape of our loaded barrel is a short arc of length L of a very large circle of radius R. For example, if our barrel is 26 inches in length L and the bending B is 0.013 inch, the central angle subtended by the barrel length L would be 1.0 milliradian (or one mil of mil-dot fame). The enclosed figure shows the simple geometric reasons supporting this claim. But, if 26 inches subtends one mil when seen from a distance R, then R must be 26,000 inches (or just over 0.4 miles). While this arc of a Copyright 2009 James A. Boatright

large circle assumption is not quite correct, it serves for our purposes here. In the neutral plane of our loaded cantilever beam, the length L subtends the central angle when seen from a distance R (as just explained), so that: (#1) L = R*. Then, at the tension-loaded upper edge of our beam, the elongated length (L + s) is given by: (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5) L + s = (R + r)*, L s = (R r)*. s = r*. B/4 = R R*Cos(/2) = R*[1 Cos(/2)]. Cos(/2) = 1 (/2)2/2 + (/2)4/24 (/2)6/720 + . When /2 is a very small value in radians, we can safely ignore the higher order terms and write: Cos(/2) = 1 (/2)2/2, So that Equation #5 becomes simply B/4 =R*(/2)2/2, (#6) B = R* /2. B = L*/2, and substituting for from Equation #4: (#7) B = L*s/(2r) = s*L/D. f = M*c/I where f = Compressive or tensile stress in an extreme fiber in pounds per square inch (psi) M = Bending Moment = L*W (in inch-pounds) c = Distance from neutral plane to extreme fiber = D/2, and I = Second Moment of Cross-sectional Area of beam Copyright 2009 James A. Boatright Now, the standard expression for the stresses in the extreme fibers of a loaded beam is:
2

(where r = D/2),

and along the bottom, compression-loaded edge, the compressed length (L s) is: So, clearly the amount of extension or compression s is given by: Referring to the figure again, the bending distance B can be written as: But the trigonometric function Cos(/2) can be expanded to the series:

or multiplying through by 4:

Substituting for R from Equation #1:

r I = 0 (r2)*(r)dr

= (/4)*r4 = (/64)*D4 for a circular beam. Substituting these values into this standard expression, we have: (#8) f = [L*W*D/2]/[(/64)*D4] = (32/)*L*W/D3. E = f/(s/L) = 30,000,000 psi for our assumed barrel steel, we have s = f*L/E, where all symbols are as previously defined. From Equation #8, we can write this as: s = (L/E)*[(32/)*L*W/D3] = (32/)*L2*W/(D3*E). And Equation #7 becomes: (#9) B = W*(32/)*L3/(D4*E). B = W/K, then, K = (E*D4)/[(32/)*L3], (in pounds per inch of deflection). Now, we can write the stiffness expression for a cylindrical rifle barrel of outside diameter D with a hole of diameter d bored so that its axis lies in the neutral plane simply by replacing the value D4 with the expression (D4 d4), so that: K = [E*(D4 d4)]/[(32/)*L3] = (2,945,000)*(D4 d4)/L3 pounds/inch, (with all dimensions are in inches). So, the stiffness of a rifle barrel increases directly with the fourth power of its diameter, and is inversely proportional to the cube of its length. Now, let us define a stiffness constant K for our cantilever barrel such that: From the definition of Youngs Modulus of Elasticity (E),

Copyright 2009 James A. Boatright

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