Chaps,
I've been asked this by a mate, who's an astronomer/physicist type bloke. At risk of opening a huge can of worms, I thought I'd pass it on to them-wot-know (I think he asked me because he knows I own a lathe!):
"I have an engineering-y question for you. I'm being asked - the fools! the fools! - to design stuff. Which is fine. But in that, I'm having to specify things like bolt sizes, materials etc. Now, I *could* work out everything from first principles. But I don't want to. So, can you point me in the direction of a useful book, or for preference, website with useful numbers on it. The useful numbers what I want to know are things like "if I have a bolt with this pitch/diameter and material, it can take this much force before it gives up" or "I have this cross-section of extruded (insert material here), it will hold how much weight?"
The alternative is for me to actually learn how all this flash simulation stuff works; but the above tables will give me a rough feel for whether the computer is talking rubbish or not..."
Any recommendations?