After I retired from my job as engineering supervisor for the U.S. Navy H-3
Sea King helicopter design and maintenance engineering group, I became
Engineering Manager for a commercial contractor supervising 5 structural
design engineers. These engineers used the Pro Engineer structural design
software suite on a daily basis to design modifications for Coast Guard,
U.S. Navy, and U. S. Army helicopters. It was my hope and plan that they
could help me perform a finite element analysis of the BJ8 stub axle and
bearing assembly with and without the spacer and shims installed, so we
could resolve the question of the effect of the spacer/shims on the stub
axle strength, once and for all.
The problem I had was that I did not have the physical dimensions of the
splined hub adapter and the internal stack-up of parts that could be used as
input to the analysis.
After Hemphill's Healey Haven stuck with me with an unusable brand-new
splined right front hub adapter (incorrectly machined, causing a wobble in
the rotor) and refused to make good on it, I decided to section the adapter
so that a cross-section of the total assembly could be obtained. With this,
I was going to feed it to one of the structural design engineers and have
him do the analysis. Unfortunately for that, it was about at this point
that I decided to retire again and I no longer had access to the engineering
expertise or software to get the analysis done.
However, I did submit measurements and photos to get the technical opinion
of all five of the engineers. Unanimously, they agreed that while the
spacer and bearing stack-up would add some small amount of stiffness to the
assembly, it was not enough to have any significant effect on either the
strength or strain (flexing) at the root of the stub axle.
Steve Byers
HBJ8L/36666
BJ8 Registry
Havelock, NC USA
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