FATIGUE LIFE STUDY OF THE KINETIC SCULPTURE BLADE
DS 77: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2014 13th International Design Conference
Year: 2014
Editor: Marjanovic Dorian, Storga Mario, Pavkovic Neven, Bojcetic Nenad
Author: Spencer ,T.D.; Gooch ,S.D.
Series: DESIGN
Section: DESIGN METHODS
Page(s): 397-406
Abstract
Blade is a kinetic sculpture designed by the late artist Len Lye. Lye built a prototype to confirm the concept of the work which he intended to be built at a much larger size. Dr. Shayne Gooch built Big Blade in 1996 at approximately twice the scale of this prototype and discovered that the constraining factor on the feasible size of the sculpture was the fatigue life of the blade material. This paper will establish an in-depth prediction for the fatigue life of the blade material at various sizes and suggest a maximum economic scale of Blade.
Keywords: kinetic sculpture, fatigue design, life prediction