will be in my flannel jammies, curled up in my sleep sack, and dreaming of weapons. I am a simple girl, with simple needs.
First on the list for right now, is finishing the rail assemblies. Gene just didn't have the time, and was working under an enormous amount of pressure, trying to cobble this together while we were being fired on. All things considered, he did pretty good work.
What we need though, isn't pretty good work, we need perfection. In the heat of a battle, the last think we need is for me to be up here clearing jams, when I am needed at my station firing our cannon. Luckily, perfection is the only way I work.
I used my handset to shoot high resolution holo-v of the railers. Once the parts were scanned in, and a good heightfield map was built, I could then tweak and map the necessary changes into the milling machine.
As I kicked my way back down to the machine shop in ring three, the thought occurred to me that Janis could probably take the models and build a simulation to help me test my changes. I needed it done right, and she doesn't know how to do things any other way. She's my kind of gal.
It took me a little while to get the loading plates cambered on my handset holo – it is always challenging working from a reference shot, but I am patient. This sort of work fills out the corners of a long day, and makes it worth living. I could spend hours on end, working on a millimeter of metal, trying to make it correct and true.
I didn't have hours, though.
“Janis, could you please help me simulate some parts I have been working on in an overlay with a reference shot I took in holo-v of the loading mechanism?”
“Certainly Jane. I have loaded a holo-v simulation to your handset. Please note there is an animation control, you may cycle the mechanism at any speed.”
“Thank you Janis, that was quick!”
“No problem at all, Jane... Jane, do you mind if I say something?”
The way she said it caught me off guard. “Of course not, Janis.”
“Thank you Jane. I wanted to say that I am very impressed with the topology you have produced for these parts. I have simulated a loading run of ten billion rounds at speeds up to 70% over the turret maximum and noted only a .0032% failure rate.”
“Janis, that is impressive, but I have to say that I am not happy with those results. I would prefer they were flawless.”
“As would I Jane. Simulating the same run, allowing slight variations in the topology of the kinetic rounds and variations in material expansion from heat, I am afraid the failure rate climbs to a .013% rate over 10 billion rounds.”
“Well, that is still very impressive, but even so...”
I chewed my lip a little as I rotated the plates at maximum resolution, searching for a flaw.
“Janis, do you see where these plates are flawed? I just can't see it.”
“Jane, they are not flawed. Your tolerances are perfect. I am not able to recommend any corrections to the topology of these parts.”
“Do you have any other suggestions? Maybe the rails are out of alignment...”
“Jane, I have just performed a 100 billion round simulation on spec for the turret, and isolated each loading failure to a new report. It's possible you may identify conditions in these failures I am not able to quantify, though it appears likely that vibration may contribute to a chaotic state in the component that may result in failure.”
It took a handful of failure simulations before I confirmed the smoking gun, so to speak. The plates had enough clearance, but they lacked flexibility and didn't absorb vibration. I tooled on the plates a bit on my handset until they had a series of longitudinal grooves in their outer faces, and hoped that would be enough to absorb vibration. It looked like it would also help shed heat, and that is always a good thing.
“Janis, I have modified the plates to attempt to reduce their ability to vibrate and retain heat. Could you please simulate to failure, and let me know how
First on the list for right now, is finishing the rail assemblies. Gene just didn't have the time, and was working under an enormous amount of pressure, trying to cobble this together while we were being fired on. All things considered, he did pretty good work.
What we need though, isn't pretty good work, we need perfection. In the heat of a battle, the last think we need is for me to be up here clearing jams, when I am needed at my station firing our cannon. Luckily, perfection is the only way I work.
I used my handset to shoot high resolution holo-v of the railers. Once the parts were scanned in, and a good heightfield map was built, I could then tweak and map the necessary changes into the milling machine.
As I kicked my way back down to the machine shop in ring three, the thought occurred to me that Janis could probably take the models and build a simulation to help me test my changes. I needed it done right, and she doesn't know how to do things any other way. She's my kind of gal.
It took me a little while to get the loading plates cambered on my handset holo – it is always challenging working from a reference shot, but I am patient. This sort of work fills out the corners of a long day, and makes it worth living. I could spend hours on end, working on a millimeter of metal, trying to make it correct and true.
I didn't have hours, though.
“Janis, could you please help me simulate some parts I have been working on in an overlay with a reference shot I took in holo-v of the loading mechanism?”
“Certainly Jane. I have loaded a holo-v simulation to your handset. Please note there is an animation control, you may cycle the mechanism at any speed.”
“Thank you Janis, that was quick!”
“No problem at all, Jane... Jane, do you mind if I say something?”
The way she said it caught me off guard. “Of course not, Janis.”
“Thank you Jane. I wanted to say that I am very impressed with the topology you have produced for these parts. I have simulated a loading run of ten billion rounds at speeds up to 70% over the turret maximum and noted only a .0032% failure rate.”
“Janis, that is impressive, but I have to say that I am not happy with those results. I would prefer they were flawless.”
“As would I Jane. Simulating the same run, allowing slight variations in the topology of the kinetic rounds and variations in material expansion from heat, I am afraid the failure rate climbs to a .013% rate over 10 billion rounds.”
“Well, that is still very impressive, but even so...”
I chewed my lip a little as I rotated the plates at maximum resolution, searching for a flaw.
“Janis, do you see where these plates are flawed? I just can't see it.”
“Jane, they are not flawed. Your tolerances are perfect. I am not able to recommend any corrections to the topology of these parts.”
“Do you have any other suggestions? Maybe the rails are out of alignment...”
“Jane, I have just performed a 100 billion round simulation on spec for the turret, and isolated each loading failure to a new report. It's possible you may identify conditions in these failures I am not able to quantify, though it appears likely that vibration may contribute to a chaotic state in the component that may result in failure.”
It took a handful of failure simulations before I confirmed the smoking gun, so to speak. The plates had enough clearance, but they lacked flexibility and didn't absorb vibration. I tooled on the plates a bit on my handset until they had a series of longitudinal grooves in their outer faces, and hoped that would be enough to absorb vibration. It looked like it would also help shed heat, and that is always a good thing.
“Janis, I have modified the plates to attempt to reduce their ability to vibrate and retain heat. Could you please simulate to failure, and let me know how
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