Material for gyro head

Hi everyone I have a question
Does anyone know what type of aluminum is used on the gyro head?(I’m redoing some parts on mine,) is it the regular 6061 or they doing it with something stronger 2011,2024,7075. Anyone know? Thanks in advance appreciate it

Here in the US 6061T6 is the standard. I have seen some made from 2024. One I saw out of 7575.

MikeBoyette said:

Here in the US 6061T6 is the standard. I have seen some made from 2024. One I saw out of 7575.

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Thanks Mike, if anyone should know it be you! Thanks

Mosquito said:

Hi everyone I have a question
Does anyone know what type of aluminum is used on the gyro head?(I’m redoing some parts on mine,) is it the regular 6061 or they doing it with something stronger 2011,2024,7075. Anyone know? Thanks in advance appreciate it

Click to expand...

ELA use stainless which is not a particularly good idea!
Stick with the 6061 series.

Regards.......Chook.

Bensen called out 2024-T3 for bearing housings and the bub bar in some of the early plans he published for homebuilt rotor heads. 6061-T6 is weaker, but considerably cheaper and more corrosion-resistant. Both alloys seem to be in general use in homebuilt gyros.

It doesn't hurt to run the numbers on anything on which your life will depend. If/when you do, be sure to use an endurance limit (fatigue life), not one-time strength, since your mechanism will be subject to vibration its whole life. E.g. 6061-T6 has a published tensile strength of around 40,000 PSI, but a frequently-cited endurance limit in the 'teens.

Even if loaded only below its endurance limit, aluminum will eventually break if the load is vibratory --as it is in a rotorcraft.

We use 304 Stainless steel weldment for side plates and where the load of the spindle bolt holding you up would be. It is much stronger than needed. For the main bearings we have a one piece billet Aluminum 6061-T6 teeter tower incorporating within it the bearing block. This could be teeter tower plates separate and bearing block separate connected with AN bolts as well. From my assessment, the teeter tower and bearing block could handle in excess of 30 Gs before catastrophic failure. The stainless steel weldment on the spindle bolt load would handle 60 G.

Material is one aspect, design features are another, equally important, one. Use a design, where all corners have the largest radii feasible.