NCC-1701 USS Enterprise Deck by Deck - WIP

[havoc92]

blssdwlf wrote:

---

I don't know if you have considered it, try using those red hexagonal screens for your "inspection viewports" as TOS used those alot. Nice work, keep it up

Thought about that; but, I needed something that could seal the internal portion of the ship off as the back side of the chamber will exit to space for ejection of the core. There won't be a direct access to the core; but, I can live with that. As long as instrumentation can be brought in close proximity, I think regular maintenance is taken care of.

[havoc92]

Lots of tedious work going on for the last several days.



The structural supports for the Dorsal section are in progress. Behind that, you can see the modified inner and outer
dorsal skins with newly cut windows. With the amount of odd geometry involved, these were cut in using the slice tool
rather than booleaning them out. I did a rough pass at using boolean operations on this; but, Wow....



Here's another shot showing the work to seam the dorsal structure up to the structural supports for the lower hull.
This did involve Booleans. Sucked; but, it worked out ok with two days worth of work on both structures at this point.



Ok, one final word today is a little special. I'm going to name drop a bit here in a good
way. Some know that there has been an ongoing debate on other sites and via email as to whether this beasty should have a warp core. I started building mine based on evidences of
it in the FJ plans and based on arguments from the Geek squad that it should be there. Thanks
guys. That didn't settle it for more than a few. I won't knock them as their arguments were
good and a couple argued to play devil's advocate for me. Ultimately, I decided to try and
settle the matter by getting an official word on it. Sooo... hail Mary through another individual who loves bananas, and there was an official response.

“Warp core is horizontal under the floor of engineering. Exits out the back.”

..words as good as gold. I've thanked the man privately and will now thank him for the
record publicly for chiming in when he probably had better things to do than settle this little
dispute lol. As it happens, this fellow took up the Matt Jeffries plans and got the official
okie dokey from the Star Trek Art dept on the matter. Definitive.. I think so. So, Thanks
go out to Doug Drexler for the assist. Very much appreciated sir.

The one caveat is that we're talking, still, two different sets of plans with main engineering
located in entirely different places. So, some investigative work is in order and I may have
to alter the main engineering floor again to do what I'm intending. We'll see.

NOTE: No, I do not have direct access to Mr. Drexler.

So, Once again, Thanks a mill Drex. And I'm off to bed and back to work.
More to come

[Saquist]

I didn't think these cores were ejectable.
Well Drex is a good source for this, glad he gave you his time.

[havoc92]

I didn't like the way the dorsal structure was coming along; so, I reworked it. It looks a little more sound to me at this point.



There's a little left to do to finish it up yet; but, I should be finished with this tonight.

[Saquist]

Can you illuminate on why this particular grid patter was chosen?

[havoc92]

Saquist wrote:

---

Can you illuminate on why this particular grid patter was chosen?

Certainly. There is a lot that went into the decision; but, ultimately, "chosen" is an apt term to apply.

I started with the horizontal and vertical beams seen in the earlier pics. Two problems began to evolve as I moved forward with this idea. One, the placement of the windows began to dictate where the structural members could be placed such that it seemed it would result in a weak design. That nagged at me but not as much as what ended up happening on the leading edge of the dorsal neck. Carrying that design to conclusion would have resulted in more than half the structural load sitting on a single spar in the front. And it would have called for a lot of really odd sized and shaped panels for the skins. So, I pitched that idea, griped, reimported my mesh and started
from the base form again.

From here, I decided the spars should be on the diagonal with some horizontal and vertical members. But, in the process, I also moved
the placement of FJ's windows. He had them almost literally sitting on the floors. I moved them to mid deck level. Did a structural reinforcement with a mid deck horizontal spar and then scratched my head as to how I would handle the forward section. Everhart presented the answer there. So, the design ends up being an interpretation of Everhart. It's not without its problems; but, it's far superior to what I started off with.

[TIN_MAN]

Ah, as soon as I saw that I thought "cool, this matches Everhart's construction B/P's" but I thought maybe it was just a fortunate coincidence? Good job there, this just keeps getting better and better!

[havoc92]

TIN_MAN wrote:

---

Ah, as soon as I saw that I thought "cool, this matches Everhart's construction B/P's" but I thought maybe it was just a fortunate coincidence? Good job there, this just keeps getting better and better!

Trying to incorporate the best of everything into her to make her as good as she can be. Where ever I can draw from external sources to improve what I have, I'll do it. She's going to have to live up to my imagination or this is a waste of time lol.

Edit:
Here's a pic of the newly cutout windows in the dorsal skins. Hadn't posted it yet I guess..

[BolianAuthor]

As always, beautiful work.

[Saquist]

havoc92 wrote:

---

Certainly. There is a lot that went into the decision; but, ultimately, "chosen" is an apt term to apply.

I started with the horizontal and vertical beams seen in the earlier pics. Two problems began to evolve as I moved forward with this idea. One, the placement of the windows began to dictate where the structural members could be placed such that it seemed it would result in a weak design. That nagged at me but not as much as what ended up happening on the leading edge of the dorsal neck. Carrying that design to conclusion would have resulted in more than half the structural load sitting on a single spar in the front. And it would have called for a lot of really odd sized and shaped panels for the skins. So, I pitched that idea, griped, reimported my mesh and started
from the base form again.

From here, I decided the spars should be on the diagonal with some horizontal and vertical members. But, in the process, I also moved
the placement of FJ's windows. He had them almost literally sitting on the floors. I moved them to mid deck level. Did a structural reinforcement with a mid deck horizontal spar and then scratched my head as to how I would handle the forward section. Everhart presented the answer there. So, the design ends up being an interpretation of Everhart. It's not without its problems; but, it's far superior to what I started off with.

I thinks thats a great explanation of what I see.

It's a common misconception that in space there is no gravity and that thus gravity isn't a factor which is far from the truth.

Is it me or does the cage concept for the dorsal section just seem structurally weak? I'm imagining torsional stress between the Primary hull and the Secondary hull and can't break the perception that the cage is going to be far too flexible considering the masses at either end of the neck...especially the entire secondary hull acting against those thin piles.

I thought there should have been 3 very large single section stiffners at the top and bottom of the neck as well as one in the middle for rigidity. I figure those sections would be at least 3 times the thickness of the current sections.

Then to actually control the torsional stress 2 direct vertical sections Running from the front of the base of the neck directly to the Saucer and the other running from the Back of the Crown of the Neck down to the middle of the neck base meeting the Secondary hull.

Since the problem with the neck is the awkward angle and running structural supports, I feel not even that is enough and that a one more stiffener is necessary to run from the middle stiffener section down in the back and another in the front from the middle stiffener section up...

That should remove a lot of play if the Primary and Secondary hull decide to go in two different directions.

Even then I think the Dorsal also needs to be buried in the (so to speak) in the Secondary hull....but I'm no Engineer...just a drafter.

[Saquist]

Seeing this is really helping me to appreciate what I could do to change the Constitution's design to make it more realistic and perhaps even a better looking ship. I really believe Shape should follow function and this might be an interesting part of the ship that could be altered to better suit it's needs.

I always felt the base of that neck need alot more girth in width for the loads it was carrying.

-----
While keeping to the Consitution current form... I envisioned something like this.

[havoc92]

Saquist wrote:

---

Seeing this is really helping me to appreciate what I could do to change the Constitution's design to make it more realistic and perhaps even a better looking ship. I really believe Shape should follow function and this might be an interesting part of the ship that could be altered to better suit it's needs.

I always felt the base of that neck need alot more girth in width for the loads it was carrying.

I kept thinking about having the supports run singly into the secondary hull structure; but, instead ended up deciding for a solid base that the structure would weld to. I felt like that would act as a stiffener at the hull connections.
But, I also went with a 12 inch beam instead of the apparrent 6 or 8 inch beams suggested by the everhart drawings. I did this before consulting Everhart essentially because I felt that any smaller would simply not be sufficient for the stresses you mentioned.

I also did a full beam instead of I-beams. I figured these columns should be more like the support columns at the base of a building - hollow core and thick walls. But I also imagine that a lot is going to rest in the nature of the materials used. These are going to be alloys that like a samurai blade allow for a mix of rigidity and flexibility.

This seems an under-appreciated idea from my point of view.. that the materials make a difference. That said, one need only look at the effect that things like titanium and carbon fibre has had on the building of all sort of things.
These materials have allowed us to make things like dragster frames that both require less of the material, provide a lighter weight frame and a more rigid and strong frame at the same time. Carbon fibre extends that even further. So next gen materials should extend this concept even further.

That said, much has to be assumed of the materials as there is no deliniation made of what the realworld tolerances of those materials might be. The buildup I have put forward for the dorsal section, were it for a stationary structure, would be pretty massive overkill. I like what Drexler did with his cutaway; but, FJ did'n't allow space to do that here. And to be honest, I'm not really certain I like the amount of space or construction dedicated to the connection at the primary hull. I'll do what I can to make the available structure do the job intended; but, I don't imagine that will look less like magic and more realistic in the end. It's annoying; but, there's only so much that license will allow one to get away with sometimes.

[blssdwlf]

If you take a look at the refit-Enterprise you can see that there are not many "deep" structural supports going into the ship from the warp pylons or the neck. Go-go super advanced materials

[Saquist]

blssdwlf wrote:

---

If you take a look at the refit-Enterprise you can see that there are not many "deep" structural supports going into the ship from the warp pylons or the neck. Go-go super advanced materials

I'm not sure exactly how you would judge the "deep structural support but I'm not sure that's true.

The refit was given a wider base (the Torpedo launcher).
The neck was also reigned in more over the Secondary hull allowing for more of those perpendicular supports to be added to stiffen between the two hulls. In fact I think you could add 3 or four vertical load supporting beams directly between the saucer and the stardrive where the original ship would only allowl one because the neck protruded forward so much.
(see picture in last post)

On the refit it looks like most of the support of neck is right above the ceiling of Main Engineering.

The refit pylons are properlly mounted with a wide base but there is nowhere on the out side that I could judge how ridgid adhered they are to the ships keel.

I'll admit the very nature of the Pylons on both the refit and the original seem to imply that the material is doing the job where structure normally would because considering that there is no bracing between the two pylons at the top then it's a given that there is a lot of flexibility in them no matter what the internal structure. (and this is normal engineering failsafe, powered tech like IDF and SIF aren't a factor at this point.)

From what I learned materials do not dictate the internal supports. Like in a house. You could have aluminum beams or wood beams but you still need the beams.

[blssdwlf]

You can see in the interior shots of the engineering room of the refit-Enterprise looking back towards where the power conduits split off to the nacelles that there aren't any bracing structures reaching in. I'd guess from where the nacelle pylons connect to the secondary hull they only reach in for support about 1 or 2 decks at the most.

The neck connects to the wider torpedo launcher box but it's mostly hollow in the front leaving only a couple of points where there could be nice beefy vertical supports.

Anyway, all I'm saying that with advanced technology (including those of alien origin) there is alot of flexibility to build things we would normally think is impossible. (Or at least it could be argued that way )

I'll stop here so as not to derail havoc92's progress.

Keep up the hard work havoc92