tmurray
SAWHORSE
We did it.
And you guys have probably done this in the past. Ever get a survey plan that used "chains" as the length of measure?
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Why we should be using the metric system in the US
- Thread starter jar546
- Start date
We did it.
And you guys have probably done this in the past. Ever get a survey plan that used "chains" as the length of measure?
Paul Sweet
Sawhorse
Metric has many advantages for measuring, and that part of it is easy to get used to.
It could take a lot of effort to get engineers used to doing calculations in metric, and almost all "rules of thumb" will have to be relearned. I'm used to the general range of CFM / SF for various types of buildings, and I know to recheck my HVAC calculations when it looks too far out. Getting used to M^3 / sec / m^2 will take some time.
Structural engineers will have it worse. A Pascal (gram / M^2) is equivalent to a feather per square yard. 1 PSF is almost 50 Pascals, and 1 KSI is 7,000,000 Pascals (or 7 MegaPascals), so you get into having to use scientific notation fairly quickly, especially when you're dealing with steel & concrete. Back in the (good old) slide rule days I found it was a lot easier to keep track of the digits than the exponents. I guess almost everything is done by computer nowadays, so that might not be as much of a problem.
Conversions are a problem, especially with temperatures. I've seen several articles where the writer didn't realize that they should use F = 9/5 C for difference instead of F = 9/5 C + 32, so a difference of 50 deg. C came out as 122 deg. F instead of 90.
It could take a lot of effort to get engineers used to doing calculations in metric, and almost all "rules of thumb" will have to be relearned. I'm used to the general range of CFM / SF for various types of buildings, and I know to recheck my HVAC calculations when it looks too far out. Getting used to M^3 / sec / m^2 will take some time.
Structural engineers will have it worse. A Pascal (gram / M^2) is equivalent to a feather per square yard. 1 PSF is almost 50 Pascals, and 1 KSI is 7,000,000 Pascals (or 7 MegaPascals), so you get into having to use scientific notation fairly quickly, especially when you're dealing with steel & concrete. Back in the (good old) slide rule days I found it was a lot easier to keep track of the digits than the exponents. I guess almost everything is done by computer nowadays, so that might not be as much of a problem.
Conversions are a problem, especially with temperatures. I've seen several articles where the writer didn't realize that they should use F = 9/5 C for difference instead of F = 9/5 C + 32, so a difference of 50 deg. C came out as 122 deg. F instead of 90.