Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
Another way of looking at the railroad's 'degree of curvature' and how it's defined.In Geometry, a chord is a straight line connecting two points on a circle.  A chord that passes through the center of a circle is the diameter.The degree of curvature on the railroad is the answer to the question. ‘How many degrees does a 100 foot chord subtend?'.  In layman's talk, if you extend lines from the ends of the chord to the center of the circle, what is the angle between the two lines.  (In geometry talk, these extended lines are perpendicular to lines of tangency to the arc at the ends of the chord.)Example 1: the degree of curvature is 1 degree.  The track therefore curved but one degree during the approximately 100 foot length of track.  It would take 360 sections of track, then, to complete a circle because there are 360 degrees in a circle.  The length of track for that circle would be 360 times 100 feet or 36,000 feet.  Dividing 36,000 feet by pi (3.14159) gives the diameter or 11,443 feet.  Half the diameter is the radius: 5,722 feet(all numbers rounded to the nearest foot).Example 2: the degree of curvature is 3 degrees.  The track has curved 3 degrees during the approximately 100 foot length of track. Again, it would take 120 sections of track to complete a circle as 360 degrees divided by 3 equals 120.   A circle with a circumference of 12,000 feet has a diameter of 3,814 feet and a radius of 1,907 feet.Note that these calculations are approximations as a chord is always slightly shorter than the arc it subtends.  But for angles less than 5 degrees, the two lengths are equal for all practical purposes.  As an example of how great the difference can get, a 60 degree curve would have a radius of 100 feet but the circumference of that circle iwould be 629 feet, the chord is still 100 feet, but the arc it subtends is 629 feet divided by 6 or 105 feet rounded to the nearest foot Art
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag