When you preserve your most complex calculations in a PTC Mathcad worksheet, you’re investing in your future. That’s because your work can be reused any time a similar problem arises, saving you and anybody else on your team time and effort. But did you know that in some cases, you don’t even have to create the worksheet in the first place?
In PTC’s community forums, you can find dozens of worksheets available for free. They cover everything from various engineering disciplines to statistics. Some act as demos for anybody learning to use the software for the first time. Others solve common physical problems. And in many cases, they also include step-by-step instructions and all the formulas you need to leverage them for your own situation.
If you haven’t started using these worksheets yet, review these 10 essentials before you (or a new colleague) start your next project. Maybe the worksheet you’re about to invent has already been created for you:
- Finding the shear force and bending moment along a beam. Use this worksheet to determine the shear force and bending moment along a simply supported beam as a function of the distance from one end. Explore distributed loads, load representations, linear functions, free-body diagrams, beams, equilibrium equations and more. You’ll also learn how to draw shear force and bending moment diagrams.
- Using the finite element method on truss structures. You may have already learned truss design in your engineering courses; but in school, it’s all done by hand. Use this worksheet to develop your designs automatically and with less chance for errors. This worksheet centers on a warehouse design based on a steel beam structure.
- Calculating force on a truss connection joint. Here’s more help with trusses. Given the geometry of the connector and material properties, will yours withstand forces in the field? This worksheet provides an example truss connection joint that you can modify with your own parameters to quickly find out whether your design can resist buckling.
- Bearing capacity and maximum load of a pier. Calculate the bearing capacity factor for a specific pier, and then use the results to find the maximum load of the pier. This worksheet allows you to define properties for the pier footings, undrained sheer strength, effective vertical stress, etc. You’ll find all the calculations, formulas, data, and solutions included so you can also use it for your own calculations.
- Finite vs. infinite life and fatigue failure for a steel object. Fatigue failures occur when machine parts undergo too many repeated or fluctuating stresses. This worksheet uses a ductile steel example, but swap out the parameters to find out the number of finite cycles your object can endure.
- RLC circuit analysis. Here’s one for the electrical engineer. Suppose you want to design a speaker that meets a certain frequency response. The horizontal trend must be over the whole spectrum of the audible range with a tolerance of +/- 1dB. Because at least two transducers are needed, you must look at the case in which there is both a low and high frequency driver. This worksheet helps you calculate the impedances of each to determine the overall frequency response.
- Analyzing process capabilities. This worksheet is for anybody working in statistics, especially manufacturing and process control. It characterizes processes by using performance indices, relates process capabilities to defect levels, incorporates process drift from the mean, and helps with design for processability. Use it to perform six sigma, cnorm function to integrate, and in-line programming.
- Getting started with PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0. By examining a simple physics problem, you can learn some important fundamentals of PTC Mathcad if you’re just getting started. This worksheet complements the tutorials in PTC Mathcad’s Getting Started tab on the ribbon.
- Natural math and units in PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0. PTC Mathcad includes two features critical to performing calculations clearly and accurately: natural math notation and units intelligence. In this worksheet, simple structural, mechanical, and electrical engineering problems demonstrate how these features work in the software.
- Programming in PTC Mathcad Prime 3.0. In PTC Mathcad, you can write logic-driven programs and publish them as visible parts of your document. That way, you can quickly prototype multi-step behaviors in the worksheet. You can also incorporate C, C++, or FORTRAN as built-in functions. More of a module than a single worksheet, this download demonstrates the computational and connectivity features of PTC Mathcad, and provides lots of tips and examples along the way.
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