I am trying to reason about chainmail geometry, and I am not getting very far.
Chainmail: http://realbeer.com/jjpalmer/HowtoChain.html It looks like there's two common patterns: where each ring intersects with four others and where each ring intersects with six others. If fall back to just two overlapping rigid rings, and if the minor radius of the ring's torus is half of the major radius of the ring's torus, I think the two rings would have to orient at right angles to each other. If, on the other hand, the minor radius was zero, the rings could lay flat and the center-to-center distance could equal the major radius. But let's say we used 14 gauge wire to make chainmail. The diameter of the wire (our torus minor diameter) would be about 1.6mm. And, just to have a value to work with, let's say our torus major diameter would be 25mm. So what would the center-to-center distance be for our two kinds of chainmail? It seems like this should be straightforward, but I keep drawing a blank. (I probably need to spend some time with a pencil and paper...). For a first approximation, I'm pretending that the wire doesn't bend after it's been bent into a circle. (Not true, obviously, but too many variables would make working this out be even more difficult.) Anyone here feel like walking me through this? (Er... please feel free to take this to the chat forum if you don't feel like using J to express the concepts?) Thanks, -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
