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For our first run, we tried a Bulkhead with a upper and lower step thickness of 0.5" each. The results showed that this bulkhead would not yield under 3000lbs:
Then, we reduced the thickness to be 0.25" on each step and found that the bulkhead would yield, particularly around the bolt holes and at the contact point with the Avionics Bay coupler, but that overall displacement would be small (~0.2mm):
Then, we increased the upper thickness to be 0.375" (this is logistically easier to increase since it does not impose an increase on AV Bay coupler length), kept the lower thickness to 0.25", but added a piston seating cut of 0.125" depth. As one can imagine, results were generally speaking similar, with actually a slightly lower displacement:
