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Could air-launched space planes reach escape velocities?

Rockets like the Ariane 5 weigh hundreds of tons, but with about 85% of that weight being fuel, the payload fraction is only about 3% (~10-20 tons). Virgin Galactic is building suborbital space planes, mostly for tourism purposes. They fly at about…
NoDataDumpNoContribution
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What happens from B to C in this stress strain diagram of mild steel?

Image Source: https://mechtics.com/design/strength-of-material/stress-strain-curve-for-mild-steel-with-defination-of-stress-and-strain/ I know that A is the proportional limit, B is the elastic limit. Up to B if the loading is removed the material…
Harshit Rajput
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What kind of metal are eye glasses frames made from?

I've noticed that prescription eye glasses frames are often made from metal that is quite rigid. It's surprisingly difficult to bend the metal, despite how thin it is. And if it does bend, it doesn't seem to weaken much when bent back and forth. Is…
User1974
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Why don't motorcycles have as good a turning radius as bicycles?

The question is about why are motorcycles not manufactured with handlebars that can turn to great degrees like a bicycle. In most motorcycles, you hardly have a steering angle of about 20-30 degrees, whereas on a bicycle, you can even go beyond 90…
Siddh Aarth
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Preventing condensate backup at startup with orifice (venturi) steam traps on medium pressure batch process mains?

I am working with 1" medium pressure steam mains (45 psig) for a batch process. Time between batches is usually short (to the order of minutes) but depending on the day the delay can be hours, and even longer over weekends or holidays. We recently…
jmac
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Detailing Fixed Cotton Duck Bridge Bearings

I'm looking for a justification for the use of cotton duck bearing pads without a sole plate. I'm specifically considering their use with precast I-girders. Say I have a two span bridge, simply supported for dead load, with expansion bearings at the…
CableStay
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What is the focal distance of an optical mouse?

I am trying to build an optical sensor for my old school, state property, standard french watt-o-meter. EDF ( Electricité de France ) has a gig which turns a wheel depending on watt consumption. The higher the wattage, the faster a tiny disk turns.…
Martin
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Hydraulic siphon spillway entry and exit velocity magnitude and profiles

I am working on the hydraulic seawater flow though a siphon spillway. My task is to determine at a location in front of the spillway the flow velocity and profile when The flow enters the spillway The flow exits the spillway See attached a…
Ruudc
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Why are some public benches made with arm rests that waste so much space?

While watching a YouTube video today, I noticed this public/park bench somewhere in the USA: It looks strange to me the way the arm rests on each side are so far into the bench, wasting a rather large combined space if you count both sides. Why…
B Burnie
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Saving RAM Memory when writing to 2K page size NAND flash

I am writing a driver for the Samsung K9WAG08U1D NAND flash chip. The specification of the memory chip mentions it has a page size of 2048 bytes (2kB). I am using a TI MSP430F2619 which has 4096 Bytes (4kB) of RAM. This means I need to allocate a 2k…
prasad
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Forgotten time units

As my kids are counting down to Christmas, I came to wonder how did people measure time through history. More precisely I wonder about unit systems for precision time keeping of years past gone. I am wondering this, because the other two most…
NMech
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Strength of a welded steel gate with vertical bars vs. crossed diagonal bars

Looking for some hints on how to create a rough estimate for the following problem. Given two steel gates with the same dimensions, same material - e.g. everything is the same. The only difference is that the middle parts have different…
kobame
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How to deal with a point force acting right on the hinge of a beam?

I have been attempting to solve a question where there is a point force acting on the hinge of a beam. Here is the problem: I am not sure how to deal with the 2 kN point force at $C$ ($C$ and $E$ are the hinges). If I split the beam into three…
saldtch
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Harvesting thermoelectric energy from computer graphics cards

During CES2015 a well know Graphic Processor Unit (GPU) manufacturer introduced a new GPU. These GPUs need complex thermal management to keep the processor cool. Most GPU accelerator card manufacturers develop new graphics accelerator cards that use…
Mahendra Gunawardena
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What made bronze the first widely used (non-ornamental) metal in human civilization?

I recall learning about the bronze age in school. Why was bronze so important to the technological development of humans? Why not some other metal?
James Jenkins
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