Just ordinary structural calculations nowadays - only one CPU needed. The graduate research involved running a parametric study of highway bridges with each model subjected to multiple nonlinear time-history analyses. Something like 30,000 runs each with thousands of time steps. It was really cool to get to batch them to a supercomputer center in Texas.
Thanks for sharing @NikeDattani. I got to use one of the US XSEDE computing centers during my graduate research and it's very interesting to hear more about what's available around the world.
It's probably bad but when I see those questions I generally think..."Oh, Wasabi will grab that with their usual answer". It's such a nice balance of establishing expectations without scaring away users.
I don't know the technical stack exchange term for how many "points" a user has. I was using the assumption that more points = a more experienced/dedicated user.
Nah, unsure that the data may not support my hypothesis. For questions tagged "structural engineering" posted June 1 through present, the OP point rating for unanswered questions was 41.6 and for answered questions was 69.6. (Data gathered by brute force since I'm very much not a programmer)
I wonder how much of the drop in answered question % is due to new users coming to ask a homework type question and not really returning. (Though like @Wasabi, I'm only looking at the structural questions)
Trying to quantify what makes these posts poor quality. Users searching for a spoon-fed answer to a homework problem instead of searching for deeper conceptual understanding? But then, they certainly meet the specificity requirement.
I struggle with downvoting - knowing that for the user it may feel...less than awesome. But it's looking like it's in the best interest of the community.
I've just been lurking lately, but like @Wasabi, have been...concerned...by the quality of questions within the structural-engineering tag. (As evidenced most recently by the duplicate Mohr's circle questions). Was the general consensus more liberal use of downvoting?
@Wasabi - was interested to see your use of FTool. I ran into it at UIUC (apparently one of the profs there did the English port). Curious if it sees use outside of the creating institutions.
I'm not sure I'm quite following you, @Wassabi, but my answer to 'do you or don't you' is that in practice I usually don't. It's really quite rare for me to do anything using plates or shells. Maybe for a curved girder bridge. But in general, I would simply define an equivalent composite beam element.
