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Originally Posted by Jabo
Sorry d00de if I had made any comments offending you, wasn't my intention 
Sometimes peeps are fascinated by diff sotware doing simulations and cals and treat it as Bible almost, not mere tools which they are.
Eeach and every theory in physics was arived at through abstract mental models and equations are only universla representations of such models - just tools.
Taht's what I meant and apologies once agian if you felt offendend thinking that I implied you were not using your grey matter  Sorry m8! |
No no, no offense taken, I was simply trying to clear up my point. For the past 6 months I have been taking materials selection classes using that software. I know that it is not always right, that was one of the main points of my learnings- that you have to think beyond the output of the program because it cannot consider all factors like we can. For example, it often suggests stone or brick for relatively strong materials, when in reality they're no good for making small parts, however great they are for large structures. Bamboo is another strong, light material that matches many high performance metals in performance when considering those two factors. But I have yet to see airplane turbines built from bamboo
Bill, I don't think the software is crap. All I did was plot strength vs thermal conductivity for a set of standard materials, not a lengthy analysis involving materials indices which would have been the best way. That still wouldn't have considered the manufacturing or cost factors, which is where Jabo's "use the brain" theory comes in.
So you tested phenolic washers versus what washers? Or bolts? No difference would not surprise me, it was just a fun materials engineering question for me.