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Show HN: Free Engineering Unit Conversion and CAD Add-Ins
- pjdixit 5y agoEngineering Unit conversion is part of the daily life for many engineers. This mundane task, if not done right, can lead to disasters that can cost lives and billions of dollars. Let me give you couple of noticable examples. 1. On September 23, 1999, $125,000,000 Mars Climate Orbiter entered Mar's atmosphere 169 km lower than planned and was destroyed by heat. Reason? NASA engineer mistook conversion factor as 1 lb = 1 Newton Pound (lb) is English unit of force. 1 lb = 4.45 N Force can be defined as: Force = Mass x Acceleration = 0.454 kg * 9.81 m/s2 (1 lb = 0.454 kg) = 4.45 kg.m/s2 = 4.45 N ( 1 N = 1 kg.m/s2) This $125 million catastrophic event could have been averted with a more careful dimensional analysis and unit conversion. 2. Another example is Gilmi Glider: The Gimli Glider or Air Canada Flight 143 was a Canadian scheduled domestic passenger flight between Montreal and Edmonton that ran out of fuel on July 23, 1983, at an altitude of 41,000 feet, midway through the flight. he accident is commonly blamed on mistaking pounds for kilograms, which resulted in the aircraft carrying only 45% of its required fuel load However, the units error was the last in a series of failures that aligned in a Swiss cheese model to cause the accident. This video explains the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGR0Dep0sqk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGR0Dep0sqk In order to address this, we have put together a web-based unit conversion tool that allows for over 4300 commonly used engineering unit conversion. Web version is FREE. However, CAD add-ins for popular 3D applications such as SolidWorks and Fusion 360 are available for a small monthly fee. Please give it a try and let me know your thoughts.