Sterrett, S. G.
(2019)
Scale Modeling (Chapter 32, _Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Engineering_).
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Abstract
This chapter describes the role of scale modeling in engineering and related sciences. Accounts of scale modeling in philosophy rarely provide a correct description of how the practice is actually employed in engineering. This chapter corrects misconceptions about scale modeling often found in the philosophical literature. It also
provides an informal explanation of how and why scale modeling works, when it does, in terms of an analogy between geometric similarity of plane figures and similarity of physically similar systems, which is
founded on physics rather than on geometry. The key idea is to identify the relevant ratios responsible for the kind of similarity that is of interest, and then to characterize similarity in terms of a set of ratios that are the same (i.e., identical, or invariant) between the model system and the system it models. References to more
extended treatments are provided for further reading.
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