Reuleaux Triangle

Kayoung Heo, Sarah Card

Good morning everyone. Today you are going to be learning about Reuleaux Polygon.-*

Franz Reuleaux
September 30 ,1829 August 20, 1905 Born in Eschweiler, Germany, died in Berlin, Germany Widely known as an engineer-scientist and father of modern kinematics. Best remembered for the classification of kinematic pairs and Reuleaux Triangle, that helped develop as a useful mechanical form. Explored new methods for analyzing how the mechanical devices work Worked as a designer and authored several books on engineering.

Properties of Reuleaux Triangle & Reuleaux Polygons

Reuleaux triangle is also known as the curve of constant width because it has the same width no matter how you measure.

Reuleaux Triangle has the smallest area of all reuleaux polygons.

reuleaux polygons always have odd number of vertices because each vertices should have opposing sides. (triangle, pentagon, ...). square, hexagon... wouldnt work because each vertices have vertices opposing them, not sides.

reuleaux polygons with the same width have the same perimeter. (e.g. Circle is one of the reuleaux polygons)

Relation to Sin Curve Notice that its height is constant but the height of center changes. If we track the movement of the centre, it forms a sinusoidal curve. If the centre goes around a circle instead of sinusoidal curve, the vertices form a square. Therefore it is used in industries when drilling square holes. (Were gonna come back to it later.)

How to find the area of the Reuleaux Triangle?

The area of each meniscus-shaped portion of the Reuleaux triangle is The area of the central equilateral triangle is So the total area is You can also find the area of the reuleaux triangle using the sinusoidal equation simply by adding the maximum and minimum together to get the width. (We discovered it!) (Im not gonna go through all of it)

How to construct a Reuleaux Triangle

1. 2. 3. 4. Draw an equilateral triangle. Place the point of a compass on one vertex Draw an arc between two opposite vertices Do that until you create a complete curve.

How to construct an Irregular Reuleaux Triangle

1. Draw an irregular triangle or as many lines as you want. 2. Draw arcs from the intersection of two lines.

3. Do this to every intersection. 4. Create a complete curve around the shape. 5. It now has a constant width.

Meissner Tetrahedron
Solid of constant width Created when the Reuleaux triangle rotates about its axis of symmetry.

Uses of Reuleaux Triangle

Square Drill: Drilling a square hole using a reuleaux triangle requires a special chuck, which allows the bit (reuleaux triangle) not to have a fixed centre of rotation. Letting the bit to drill a hole that is nearly a square; the corner are slightly rounded. Rotary Engine: The reuleaux triangle moves in an orbital fashion giving its unique ovallike epitrochoid-shape. Manholes: What will happen if the manhole covers are in square-shape? One manhole cover weighs 63~252 kg. So if it drops on a worker, the damage would be severe. If its a square, it would fall into the hole. Same for a triangle and other polygons because thre is always the longer width (e.g. diagonals) manholes with the reuleaux polygons always have the same sidth so we would not have to worry about it fall through the hole. Reuleaux triangle isused for manholes in U.S. It is the most efficient shape because reuleaux triangle has the smallest area of all reuleaux polygons, which means it needs the minimal money to produce them. Coins: non-circular coins are reuleaux polygons. The reason is related to how vending machine works. This is the cross section of a vending machine. Vending machines validates the coins by identifying the width of them. It their width werent constant, they would not be able to identify the width. Moreover, when they go through the pipe thing in the machine, they might get stuck. Reuleaux polygon cylinder-shaped log: in ancient times, people used reuleaux polygon cylinder-shaped logs to carry large objects like stones. Because the width is constant, the object will move along a level plane smoothly, with no up or down movement. Bicycle wheel: Since the wheels are reuleaux polygon shaped, it runs smoothly. However it requires more energy to ride than normal bicycles thus the reuleaux bikes are suitable for people wanting to lose weight. Pencils Guitar picks Building Windows