Quote:
Originally Posted by inorbert
My team (5811) has a sponsorer who is a plastics manufacturer; they allow us to have any scrap material we want so we have a stock pile of lexan in our shop. Last season we used it as guide pannels for our intake and decoration. I was wondering if lexan (or other plastics) can be used for more stuctural components in robot build
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The short version is yes. As IKE said, people from 1714 would be great to contact for more info (my HS team, haven't been in touch with them in awhile, hope y'all are doing great stuff, etc)
The key things to remember are that lexan is strong, but not particularly rigid. As a very rough approximation, to get a piece roughly as strong as an aluminum piece, you'll want to double the thickness (so a 1/4" lexan plate is roughly as strong and vaguely as rigid as a 1/8" aluminum plate). So for more structural pieces on a robot you'll end up using more 1/4" or even 3/8" lexan plate. Things like 1/8" lexan are great for lining surfaces supported by other materials (i.e. to form a flat area between two aluminum tubes, etc). 1/8" lexan can also be used for gussets but they do tend to be a bit weaker, so 1/4" or 3/16" lexan gussets are a safer bet.
The best use for structural lexan is in over-the-bumper manipulator components that deal with impacts from other robots. Things such as intakes, defense manipulators from this year, etc. The elastic deformability of lexan helps absorb the energy from impacts and prevents permanent bending in a mechanism that would otherwise bend if made from thin wall aluminum. Lots of teams used lexan in 2014 ball intakes extensively.