On 8/7/2009 3:22:35 PM, jmG wrote:
>When dealing with empirical or
>deduced formulas, they are
>necessarily based on a unit
>system, then you should use
>them as is (if basically
>correct) and convert the user
>data to the formula system.
>The work sheet starts with
>user data,
>... then continues with
>converted to engineering
>formulas,
>... then apply to the working
>formulas.
>
>This is why some standard like
>ISO have attempted doing,
>scrapping and recycling tons
>of books and formulas. A good
>example of such a cleaning is
>the orifice plate
>calculations. All these
>considerations should be split
>between the client who should
>supply the working formulas
>and the designer applying the
>formulas... and keep the work
>traceable. Too much automation
>is detrimental to public
>safety.
>
>jmG
Peter,
The choice of whether to use, or not use, units is
a long running discussion.
Jean [jmG] favours the approach where the engineer
does the careful conversion first, then uses an established [book] formula to do the numeric
calculation.
My preference is to use MathCAD's built in units
capability to support the error detection - even
careful engineers can make mistakes, but then so
can computers 😉
Philip Oakley