Re: Stress Analysis Spreadsheet Software - Opinions

From: <Christopher>
Date: Sat Feb 18 2006 - 00:01:00 EST

On Feb 17, 2006, at 8:54 PM, Geoff Stone DD&D Australia wrote:

> I dont use Excel that often. I leave it to the Beanies to use. Have
> seen too many mistakes made in Excel.

I've seen too many mistakes make with every damn piece of software I ever used. You can do some pretty elegant things with it. Hell, I've done some pretty elegant things with it. All the optimization, linear algebra, special functions and matrix arithmetic I can make use of.

I admit, I'll probably spring for Mathematica one of these days, the Mathematica Lite version, probably. I've been using Excel since 1987, when it was a Mac-only app, and I've found it's more versatile than any other calculation package I've ever used.

Actually, the first spreadsheet I ever used was a Visi-calc workalike that came with a Franklin Ace computer I bought in 1985. I came within an inch of erasing the floppy disk it was on, when I discovered it would generate the lengthwise stress distribution in an edge-loaded cylindrical shell, just as fast as dammit. That's damn hard work even with an HP-67. The I worked out an automated version of a floatinghead analysis, that saved enough calculator tape, let alone time, to seem like a miracle. I've been using spreadsheets ever since. Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=ZtAXMhED0UAo3R-71nVZwydB1IbwutJo3_xvx6J7N0Yd7lW5BvL_-GTKTurQVklNvtvihwSC8SzIxDuF">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.

.......................................| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania

1864)
<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw/">http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw/</a> Received on Sat Feb 18 00:01:00 2006