Howard, Did this guy (an engineer) ever hear of exponential notation? What is wrong with writing the large numbers as 43.6E3 and 13.7E6? This makes the numbers very easy to work with and anyone who calls himself an engineer should be at ease with exponential notation.
I would like to hear a response from an engineer in the rest of the world who has never worked in inches and how they manipulate large numbers. I'll bet they use exponential notation. Jerry ________________________________ From: Howard Ressel <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 2:54:24 PM Subject: [USMA:42876] Fwd: RE: Difficulty of calculating steel members? This was a bit back but i received a response from a structural engineer friend of mine and he tends to agree. -- "Go for a Metric America" Howard Ressel Project Design Engineer, Region 4 (585) 272-3372 >>>>>>>>>>> I would agree that designing steel in metric is not as user friendly. The steel section properties are typically mm2, mm3 or mm4 and are very large numbers. For example the area of a W36x230 beam shape is 68 in2 or 43600 mm2. Similarly, the bending section modulus is 837 in3 or 13700000 mm3. The larger values are not that easy to work with. Hope this helps. Stephen J. P________ Jr., P.E. Associate / Structural Engineer -----Original Message----- From: Howard Ressel [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 8:42 AM Subject: Fwd: [USMA:42472] Difficulty of calculating steel members? What do you think of this? Is it really harder to design steel in metric? -- "Go for a Metric America" Howard Ressel Project Design Engineer, Region 4 (585) 272-3372 >>> On 1/24/2009 at 6:16 PM, in message <[email protected]>, Paul Armstrong <[email protected]> wrote: >> > I got the following reply to a video on YouTube. > > While I did engineering in university, I'm a sysadmin so dealing with > steel members isn't something I've had to do at a practical level. > Anyone understand how this could make sense (I know, there's no > detail, it's just a random assertion)? > >> >> help center | e-mail options | report spam >> GenScripter has made a comment on Why We Need Metric - My Story: >> >> You clearly aren't a structural engineer. Steel members using the >> metric system are far more difficult to calculate and designate than >> the imperial unit members. The metric system isn't a panacea. >> You can reply to this comment by visiting the comments page. >> >> (c) 2009 YouTube, LLC
