09-24-2021, 09:35 PM
(09-24-2021, 09:25 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(09-24-2021, 08:24 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Getting further off topic here, but Colin Chapman's (founder of Lotus Cars) view was that a race car should be falling apart just after it crosses the finish line, otherwise it was overengineered.
One of the quotes attributed to him was that "anyone can design a bridge that will stand up, but it takes an engineer to design a bridge that will only JUST stand up."
Of course, one can add a safety factor after that, at least as long as one is not working for Colin Chapman.
I mean, racing is different from building a bridge. The point of racing (or any performance test) is to exist on the edge, if that car doesn't fall apart as it crosses the line, it could have gone faster (we're kinda getting into a metaphor here), and those who drive the car know that there is a chance of ending up on the wrong side of the knife's edge. But a bridge has a different purpose and those using it have different standards.
That being said, the engineering profession is interesting, in theory the safety factor for structures like bridges has increased over time (as our tolerance for bridge collapses has decreased) but the reality is also that we are better at estimating loading and structural strength (we better understand these things) so are able to achieve these safety factors much more...precisely, leading to designs which have less safety in other ways (i.e., using fracture critical designs).
And I do agree with all of that.
