Fir tree joint

(wiki-TODO: add images)

These are …

• expanding on the idea of dovetail joints.
  
• maximizing the preservation of material strength
  for form closure connections for supporting very high tensile loads.
  

Interlocks may be more or less barbed depending on presence of lateral support.

Macroscale context

In macroscale technology these fir tree joints can be found in slot-in turbine blades for jet engines.
Otherwise they are rarely seen as that much performance is rarely needed.
3D printing making the manufacturing of them much easier could make them more common.
But it has not caught on.

Nanoscale context

In future gemstone based APM these fir tree joints <nr> will likely be useful in Crystolecule constuction kit sets.
Combing most effective recyclability at the smallest scales
(so due to much smaller combinatorial design space explosion limits at smallest scales)
with preservation of most of the mechanical performance of the base material.

Fir tree joints are likely not useful in early incremental path foldamer based systems
that are made by termally driven self assembly
as these are much softer and lack internal covalent cohesion.

Related

• Clip connector
• ReChain fir tree quick disconnector
• ReChain
• Crystolecule constuction kit sets
• Suitable mechanisms

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• ReChain fir tree side clamps

External links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovetail_joint
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lopatka_turb_RSI.jpg