Stick with Ali profile or venture into plate?

[ecat]

Ahh, the internet!!! Lucky I didn't get as far as P in the alphabet

Here's a nice page http://www.aps.anl.gov/APS_Engineeri...sticBeam2.html , the numbers are easy. For a horizontal force my imaginary plate has an I of 133333.3333 so...

Supported at 1 end only (option 14), the plate deflects by 0.86mm which is about the same value returned from the 1st web calc.

Simple support at both ends, force applied in the middle (option 4) which should match the Bosch calc configuration, gives a deflection of 0.05mm. About right?

Deflection due to 200N vertical force:
Plate: less than 0.00mm (-0.00054)
Profile: less than 0.00mm for 40x160 (Bosh profile deflection calc)

Deflection due to 70N horizontal force:
Plate: 0.05mm
Profile: 0.01mm

Plate now looks much better, and more plausible. The extra width of the profile still gives it the edge vs 70N where deflection is 1/5th of plate. The profile should also win the weight race, though the ValuFrame extra density may mix things up a bit!

Also found routercnc's excellent spread sheets
http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/showth...highlight=beam

Simply Supported = both ends simply supported and the calcs agree with each other :)

Phew.

Edit:
Thanks for the links routercnc, you were typing while I was thinking... This gives you time to type a lot :)