APPLICATIONS
Kinetic sculpture made possible with
carbon fiber composites
Source: Gurit
An unusual wind-activated kinetic sculpture, designed by two
of Australia���s preeminent public artists, Jennifer Turpin and
Michaelie Crawford, was realized with the help of Gurit (Newport, Isle of Wight, U.K.) and molder Innovation Composites
(South Nowra, New South Wales, Australia). The composite
creation, dubbed Halo, is a giant tapered yellow ring, measur-
ing 12m/39 ft in diameter. The ring is attached to a 6m/19.5-ft
long silver arm, which, in turn, is mounted atop a 13m/42.2-ft
tall silver pole. With an eccentric balance point, the ring tilts
and turns in response to changes in wind speed, direction
and gusts. The unpredictable movement provides a visually
intriguing contrast to the stationary pole, especially when illuminated at night. Notably, the weight of the ring and arm is
balanced on a ceramic bearing the size of a small glass marble.
The sculpture project was managed by structural engineers
Partridge Event Engineering (St. Leonards, New South Wales,
Australia). Gurit���s structural engineering team was called in to
help turn the unique design into a tangible piece of public art
for Central Park in Sydney, Australia. The artists��� design called
for the ring to taper dramatically from its root to its far edge and
to be as light as possible to maximize movement in the wind,
yet appear to sit ���at at rest. After the initial structural design
concept was developed, Gurit engineers used advanced ���nite
element analysis (FEA) to run a series of design optimizations
with various ���ber architectures. The FEA determined that to
meet the weight and stiffness criteria and minimize de���ection,
a carbon ���ber/epoxy composite was the only feasible material.
The plug and mold for the ring were made by mouldCAM
(Tingalpa, Queensland, Australia), using Gurit T-Paste 70-2
machinable tooling paste. Then, the ring was hand laminated
by Innovation Composites, using Gurit double-bias carbon/Eglass cloth and unidirectional carbon tape, wet out with
Gurit���s Ampreg 22 epoxy resin. The ring���s supporting arm was
designed and fabricated with a crescent-shaped cross-section
(to better react to the wind) using Gurit SE 84 LV prepreg to
lay up the arm and to maintain very tight tolerances where the
part had to ���t into metal end-brackets for attachment to the
pole. The sculpture was installed in November 2012.
january 2013
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