> LOL! OK, where's my latest Insight spam... OK, Autodesk AutoCAD LT 2010, 

>
> I'm *so* not trying that. :-P

There used to be a free version of ProEngineer called ProDesktop which was 
really good.  Unfortunately they stopped that line for some reason, and now 
there seems to be nothing available for home users in terms of quality 3D 
CAD.

> I was chatting to some guy who apparently designs bridges and so forth. 
> Maybe not "bridges" as such, but things like motorway flyovers, ramps, 
> etc. Apparently it's kind of important to know about such things...

I would imagine so, you don't want a motorway flyover collapsing because a 
queue of heavy trucks stops on it.  Also important to know how much your 
bridge is going to expand/contract based on temperature and design for that, 
otherwise you'll end up with a buckled road...

> Personally, I know very little about this kind of thing. Although I did 
> read somewhere that at high speeds, materials behave as if they are harder 
> and more brittle than they are. Which would explain why jumping 
> belly-first into a pool of soft, liquid water is so God-damned painful. 
> o_O

When you test the hardness of materials you generally apply the force quite 
slowly, so can I well imagine that applying forces at a similar speed to 
that which the material can deform will result in a seemingly much harder 
material.  I suspect for things like road surfaces they generally test with 
real life stuff and don't just go on the suppliers hardness rating. 
Although you never know, when they built the Newbury bypass they had to do 
it again a year later because the trucks had ripped up the surface.

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