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Unread 18-08-2011, 18:57
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Re: 3/8 shaft, is it strong enough.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lemiant View Post
Solidworks thinks we can withstand 25lbs with a 2:1 safety margin, but that's hard to believe.
On one hand, don't rely on intuition to tell if something is good or not; engineers use math to prove it.

On the other hand, work hard to never lose that skepticism; always question the output of a software program, especially if you are not completely knowledgeable about how exactly it comes up with those numbers.
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OK, to help you get a better feel for this, try an experiment:
Take a 3/8" steel bolt, clamp it tightly (in a vise perhaps), and whack it with a 12 pound sledgehammer, dropped from about a foot (25 pounds of force, +/- 100%).
Did it bend?
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