C
Chuck Harris
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
John said:I read in sci.electronics.design that Chuck Harris <[email protected]>
wrote (in <[email protected]>) about 'A relatively
unimportant announcement...', on Mon, 29 Dec 2003:
That's why the Prof was not really right to choose a bridge as the
example. They are (or were, before we had computers) typically built
with big safety factors - 3 to 6, so that even if the calculations were
off, it wouldn't be disastrous.
True, in real life, but not on engineering exams. In real life,
engineers are pessimists, and add in generous safety margins to help
them sleep at night. In exams, the problems usually didn't deal with
safety margins, but rather with exact answers to stress questions, such
as how many pounds of tension is in stress member A-B.
If you slipped a decimal point, even a 3 - 6x safety factor won't help!
-Chuck Harris