Re: [FT] Hull Strength and Stress

John Leary wrote:
>      Suspend logic.	Trying to understand why a weak hull ship
> can have a very high thrust will hurt the brain.

Donald Hosford wrote:
>It is easy for me to understand....recently a highschool girl, in my
>area, built a bridge out of toothpics that held up some 1000+ POUNDS.
>If something so flimsey could hold up so much, a weak hulled high speed
>ship is easy.

This makes sense. The vehicle can manouver quickly because it has been
designed to do so, with the "Impact" of sudden thruster changes loaded
across the entire frame (maybe 10 manouver outlets per direction instead
of
2). However weapons hits are more focused, and put force on parts of the
structure that are not necessarily properly stressed for those forces.
The
concept of Pressure per Square Area is important here: 100 pounds on a
surface 10 inches by 10 inches is 1 PSI, while the same weight on a 1/2
inch
square is 400 PSI.

In other words: That bridge could hold 1,000 lbs (properly distributed
across the frame), up until someone takes a sledgehammer to it, or drops
a
knitting needle off the empire state building at it (1/16th to 1/8th lb
with
less than a 32nd of a square inch impact area, at a velocity of 32
feet/second.....roughly translated means: "Ouch")