Nick Mueller wrote:
David Billington wrote:


What is the status of daN. I have run across it a few times before and
finally looks it up, as I didn't know what it was, decanewton 1daN =
10N. Now the data sheets make sense.


That is legal. da (deca) is the multiplier (10) and N the unit (Newton). But
at least here in Germany daN is very rare. Anyhow, the reason why it might
be used is that the number is almost (0.981) the same as kp (no more legal,
non-SI).


I was aware of the prefixes such as deca, deci etc but had not run
across the abbreviation such as in daN. The only place I can recall
seeing it in the UK was on the RS site www.rswww.com when looking for
vibration isolation mounts. I annoyed me enough the other day that I
looked up what it was so the data sheet made sense, now I might consider
using some if needed. Having done physics in high school in the US (all
SI metric) and an engineering degree in the UK, I could not recall ever
seeing daN before, always N, kg, mm, m etc. In the same way I had only
recently run across kgf used so had to check what it was, always seen kg
before. At least I have never had the pleasure of foot, poundals, and
slugs, as one of the guys on my engineering course did. He got a year
placement working at a US aerospace company that used foot, poundals,
and slugs. He, having been educated entirely in the UK, had never heard
of them before as they had gone out of use in the UK.

The reason why people stick to N/mm^2 is, that the numbers are more handy
compared to the Pa (N/m^2). Also, math in mechanical engineering often
enough is done in mm and not in m, as dimensions are in mm. Anyhow, all can
well be scaled and there is no conversion with weird factors. Just a thing
of convenience, just depends on how you prefer to calculate.


Nick