Jonathan Ho Kim jkim6383

Case Study 3
Summary
The client has asked us for the size of the motor that will need to be used for the garage door opening. The basic information provided for the garage door is that the dimensions of the garage door is 16ft wide and 7ft tall that is connected to a rail system. The garage door has six panels that are 16ft wide and 14in tall, each weighing 48lbs. The garage door is mainly opened with the mounted motor and a car transmitter is used for the activation of the motor. The counterbalance spring will be used for additional support to open the door. When the door is fully opened, it has a length of 3.5ft and when the door is fully closed, it will have a length of 7.0ft. The structure of the garage door system is very rigid and provides enough support. There are several design parts of this garage system that provides a specific function to the garage. We would like to point out five important parts of the garage, which are the heavy-duty door rollers, door arm, chain drive rail, counterbalance springs, and the trolley carriage. The heavy-duty door rollers are located at the sides of each of the garage door panels. These rollers will either roll up or down when the motor is activated for opening and closing the door. The door arm is connected the top part of the garage panel and the chain drive rail. It is the main connection that is used to transfer the force used for lifting in the motor to the garage door. The chain drive rail is internally filled with chains that it connected to the garage motor door. It essentially has a similar system to the bike chains. The counterbalance springs, as explained earlier, is used for additional support that is needed to lift the garage door. The trolley carriage is the part on the chain drive trail directly connected to the door arm. The trolley carriage will move forward or backward depending on the movement of the garage door.

Diagrams of Design Parts of the Garage Heavy duty door rollers Each of these door rollers are connected in between each of the door panels of the garage.

Door Arm

Chain Drive Rail

Counterbalance Springs

Trolley Carriage

Analysis
The most important part is to calculate the spring constant of the counterbalance spring and also the total weight of the garage. Because as told earlier, each of the panels weigh 48lbs and there are six panels in total, making the garage door to weight approximately 288lbs. To calculate the spring constant of the counterbalance spring, we would need to assume that the force used in the equation is equal to the gravitational force of the door. The gravitational acceleration is 32ft/s2, so the gravitational force would equal to 9216lb*ft/s2. By using Hookes law of F=-kx, we could solve for the spring constant k. When the door is opened, the counterbalance spring is compressed to 3.5ft, but has nominal tension, while when the door is fully closed, the length of the spring is 7.0ft having a tension of half of the weight of the garage. 4608lb*ft/s2=(k)(3.5ft) k=1316 We can also assume that because the tension of the spring decreases while the door is opening, then the rest of the force will be applied through the motor. However, it is impossible to say how much force the motor applies because the weight of each of the parts of the garage is unidentified. External Forces when Initially Opened When the garage door is initially opened, the external force applied to the door would be gravitational force. As stated earlier, when the door is opened, the counterbalance spring would have nominal tension, meaning that it has no force applied to the door. In order to counter weight the weight of the door, the door arm must actually apply a force equivalent to the gravitational force of the garage door in order to maintain its position being opened still or the garage door will collapse. External Forces when Initially Closed When the garage door is initially closed, there is a gravitational force still applied to the door. Another force applied to the system would be the counterbalance spring. As stated earlier, it has a tension half of the weight of the garage door. The door arm would be applying the other half of the force needed in order to balance out the gravitational force of the garage door. External Forces when travelling midpoint When travelling midpoint, a gravitational force is applied to the garage door. However at this time, the tension of the counterbalance spring will continuously decrease when the door is opening. The motor will be applying a force in order to pull up the garage door to be fully opened. Also frictional force will play a part during the movement of the garage door. Unless each of the door rollers are greased with oil in order to minimize friction, friction will slow down the movement and would require the motor to apply additional force.

Conclusion
Because the garage door is 16ft wide and 7ft tall, I would basically state that this garage door is a double door garage. This would require a 1/2 horsepower garage door opener to open this garage door. 1/2 horsepower garage door openers basically can handle garage doors that weight up to 500lbs. Increasing the spring constant would actually be easier to open a garage door because it would not require the motor to apply more force to pull up the garage door. This is why when the counterbalance springs wear off and become old, the spring constant as well will decrease. Decreasing the spring constant will in fact will require the motor to apply for more to open the garage door, meaning that it would require more time to pull up the garage door to be fully opened.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------http://garages.about.com/od/garagemaintenance/a/GarageDoorBuy.htm - diagram http://www.orschelnfarmhome.com/OrschelnFarmHome/ctl16754/cp58176/si6247109/cl1/heavyduty-garage-door-rollers - diagram http://www.hobbitdist.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=217308&Cate gory_Code=LIN-PTS - diagram http://www.homedepot.ca/product/chain-drive-rail-extension-kit-for-10-feet-high-garagedoors/984391 - diagram http://www.jerseygaragedoorrepair.com/springs-replace/ - Used information to determine the size and power of the garage door opener.