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Originally Posted by pseudo
It's all good, mathematicians aren't exactly known for social skills either!
Miniaturization of prototypes sounds pretty cool, I know that's a big part of Formula 1 engineering. You basically just scale the reynolds number of a fluid to compensate for the smaller size, right?
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Pretty much that was the gist of it. That and changing the fluid from air to water so that you could imitate a faster speed of air. You can get equal reactions with different density fluids at different speeds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pseudo
I had the exact same experience working with stupidly large matrices by hand in one of my applied linear algebra classes. Those teachers are plain sadistic.
I'm curious how geometries come into play when doing FEA by hand. I don't have much(hic. any) experience with engineering. What do the matrices represent? Do you basically make a matrix that represents cartesian point approximations of the properties of a fluid, and then evolve the matrix based on neighboring cells? (if that makes any sense)
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First, each node of your model represents a point where you want moment and force information. You can put these nodes wherever you want on the object, but usually they make the most sense to be at joints and edges and fixed points for starters, then more to increase accuracy in other areas. Since each one of these nodes represents 6-axis motion you start compiling 6x6 matrices per node with some things added and some things subtracting depending on orientation.. it gets large really quickly.. absolutely sadistic!
Quote:
Originally Posted by pseudo
The advantage and disadvantage of being a mathematician is that everything makes sense at a theoretical level, but I have no practical understanding of how things are done in the field  |
This is one of the reasons I went into Engineering.
Get to see some of both.