What is the necessity of using logarithmic scales in engineering and design?

Answer 1

There are many processes that rely on logarithms. For instance, the fatigue life resistance of a piece of metal is in logarithmic ratio to the cyclical load. This is fundamental in the determination of how strong to make a component for it to resits in service.
Corrosion resistance is also relying on logarithms, the degradation of the surface can only be appreciated using log scale as a function of the chemical concentration of the oxidizing agent.
And so on.
If you were hoping to avoid logs in engineering, sorry to disappoint you, it is needed.

Answer 2

i'm going to grant an answer interior the way of an occasion. Take a chart that shows the present-time relationship of a definite fuse, basically the quantity of time mandatory to blow the fuse at a particular modern-day. At 2 circumstances the rated modern-day, the fuse won't blow for 3 hours, consistent with its variety. At one hundred circumstances the rated modern-day, the fuse could blow in 0.01 seconds. To graph this linearly does not enable any decision to verify the values the place it may well be maximum mandatory. by using utilising logarithmic scales, the fuse chart can tutor 7 or greater magnitudes for each scale. a brilliant number of circumstances, plotting outputs for purposes that advance or cut back exponentially could carry approximately lots greater helpful interpretation of the help. we could say which you had to be waiting to verify the version between 0.01 seconds and 0.02 seconds. so which you employ a branch of one million mm for each 0.01 2d. Then to be waiting to chart out linearly to 3 hours (from the occasion above), the time axis might could be one million,080,000 mm or one million,080 meters huge. utilising logarithmic scales helps this to be plotted on a properly-known 8.5" x 11" paper.

Answer 3

Logs are good for fitting exponentially increasing (large) range data to a graph. It really just shrinks the graph size down so you can see it.

When you have data that has a massive exponential range there is no real way to view it w/o plotting via log plot, if plotted in normal linear mode it would be huge, if scaled it would make most of the graph look like a dot.

For example, a time vs. response plot - you want to see the behavior of the early part (seconds) AND the late part (DAYS) on the same plot. must do a log.

Answer 4

To add to Vincent's list, in electronics, radio signal amplitudes and most signal processing rely on logs; our ear is sensitive in a logarithmic way and most signal compression uses logarithms. Circuit analysis relies very heavily on logs but not for doing multiplication by addition but for being able to solve problems that are really curves as straight lines.

Answer 5

well, you can simplify so many calculations like multiplications and divisions......has a lot of uses in engineering....