I was always a bit weak at Mechanics !
I'm looking at the maximum deflection of a beam with a distributed load - I've got all the parameters for the equation but what is not clear is if the downward load is in kg or Newtons. The downward mass is 125kg over the length of the beam - is this expressed as '125' or '125 * 9.81' ?
Thanks Rob
You ought to be measuring force in Newtons, 125 * 9.81
It is confusing since weight is technically a force and we (incorrectly) measure it in kg!!
Many thanks - I see I really answered my own question in that I did say that the weight was 'mass' and of course as you say this has to be converted into a force (I do remember that f =3D ma) ! The downside is that I now have 10x more deflection than I had with a gravity of only 1 ! Rob
The simplest solution is to download superbeam from
(I think the demo license allows people to use it indefinitely for commercial purposes, but I think that's morally dubious.)
The actual wording is
"This demo version of SuperBeam is made available to you for trial purposes only and you may spend up to 30 days from xxxx evaluating it. At the end of this period you must remove it from your system if you have not purchased your own licensed copy. You may NOT sell any services to others that involve the use of this version of SuperBeam."
The key restriction on the demo is that it doesn't allow printing. I had to add the Demo overlay on the screen as some tightwads were doing screen prints to get calcs for the BCO. Bit sad that.
superbeam.co.uk=A0www.eurobeam.co.uk=A0www.greentram.com
Sorry - the learning curve for Superbeam is too long - I tried it before for a simple structure and abandoned it very fast. I've looked at it again and again for my simple requirement I'll go back to pen and paper or Google calculator (which I found is great - feed the first set of numbers in and then tweak them to get the answer)
Superbeam may be user friendly to those who know about beams but to the electronically trained rather than mechanically, it's a load of gobblidegook.
Sorry Tony !! :>(
Rob
Quite possibly and this is not unintentional. When it was still OK to climb Uluru (Ayers Rock) there was no chain to hold on to for the first 100m or so. The reason, it was explained, was that if you could get this far, then they didn't want you going and further ... and possibly having to be rescued. The 'gobblidegook' - e.g. asking for an effective length factor - won't worry anyone who understands beam calcs; as for everyone else, if they're baffled they probably shouldn't be using the program for real-life projects.
SuperBeam is pitched at people who do beam calculations with a calculator or home made spreadsheet and want a quicker and easier way of producing calculations. When I had my office in Twickenham I got a steady trickle of phone enquiries from potential buyers (mainly builders) who thought that for £149 they need never employ an engineer again. My answer, every time, was that if they didn't already have a sound knowledge of the underlying engineering then they shouldn't buy the program - SuperBeam is a classic garbage in, garbage out app.
At the risk of advertising a possible competitor look at
"The concept behind this programme is to provide the builder with the means to calculate structural elements of a building and provide calculation sheets to the building inspector for verification without the need to know loads, weights etc of the building ... Hence, with no structural design knowledge, the information can be provided to reach the design criteria"
I will just say that this horrifies me. I do not want the UK to follow the USA in requiring all structural calcs to be produced by a licensed engineer since there are many people with no formal qualifications who have a sound knowledge of what they do, but rubbish calcs produced by any computer program (ours included) do strengthen the argument for this.
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