TABLE OF CONTENTS Luigi Tavolino, furniture designer, conceives of a light-weight table of daring simplicity: a flat sheet of toughened glass supported on slender, un-braced, cylindrical legs (Figure 6.5). The legs must be solid (to make them thin) and as light as possible (to make the table easier to move). They must support the table top and whatever is placed upon it without buckling (Table 6.5). What materials could one recommend?
| Function | Column (supporting compressive loads) |
| Constraints |
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| Objective |
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| Free variables |
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This is a problem with two objectives [1]: weight is to be minimized, and slenderness maximized. There is one constraint: resistance to buckling. Consider minimizing weight first.
The leg is a slender column of material of density ? and modulus E. Its length, L, and the maximum load, F, it must carry are determined by the design: they are fixed. The radius r of a leg is a free variable. We wish to...
