Non-metallic slider grommets

[edge01 1]

Three piece press fit vs. molding for r and d would less expensive.

[KevinMcGuire 0]

I tinkered around with grommets made of Delrin. I found that they worked well but they didn't hold up to repeated jumps all that well but they didn't have to. The system I built never got a whole lot of use any way. But it sure was fun

[swilson 0]

Phenolic laminates are possibly another choice. They're quite hard and wear resistant, but with the fabric they have quite a lot of strength and depending on the grade, are not brittle. They're pretty cheap too.

[pchapman 279]

Phenolics, delrin, all these sorts of options -- it would be interesting to see what the strength calculations work out to be. I'm not knocking the idea, just saying that could be part of the process. Carbon fibre may be overkill. The related issue is what strength is required. It's not like there's a lot of research into the loads on slider grommets, both for normal and abnormal openings. Putting a normal #8 brass grommet into a tensile test machine would at least give a baseline of what is an old standard in skydiving, whether or not it is structurally overbuilt.

[bfilarsky 0]

Try using titanium. I doubt the small amount used on the grommets is enough to set the metal detector off. If you want to give it a shot try walking through security with just the titanium grommets in your pocket, and see if they set it off.