Mathmatics and Dentless: Dentfix and Hail Dent Removal
“Of all the regular curves, spirals and helices are probably the most common. They are found throughout the natural world, in many forms, at every scale of existence….. It is clearly one of natures favorite patterns”
Wade, David. Symmetry the ordering principle, Bloomsbury, 2006. Pg28.
Mathematics and Paintless Dent Repair. Mathematics is the fastest way to understand and apply Paintless Dent Repair rules and procedures.
Im going to explain this based upon 5 primary factors.
1. The Golden Ratio
2. Geometry
3. Chaos Theory and Fluid Dynamics
4. Physics
5. Splash Analysis
Imagine nature dropping a perfect hail stone ball from 50,000 feet up onto the hood of a car (The Golden Ratio). The hail stone at terminal velocity will strike the panel (Physics) creating a circular looking dent (Splash Analysis) and slightly raising the metal around the crater area (Physics, Fluid Dynamics). Lets Jump in.
1. The Golden Ratio or fibonacci number is found everywhere from our bodies, to art, to plants, to our very DNA, it is quite simply the very mathematical code of our universe.
Here is a video of how a typical circle dent is repaired. If you follow fibonacci number exactly in the core of a dent with multiple passes. Obviously no dent is a perfect circle with a perfectly round bottom, however if it were and you could control the exact pressure it would result in a perfect repair, mathematically it is possible under those conditions without the need to knock down.
2. Geometry and Macro Damage. Paintless Dent Repair does use geometry to understand how sheet metal will perform under a number of variables. Primarily, weak and tighter areas. If you pull a dent in the left quadrant how that metal will respond in the right quadrant. You can determine how the metal will respond by its type, where its brace points are located, and the type of pull or push you intend to make and where. Even for technicians that may not be aware of it directly, they are determining the next chess move based upon thousands of iterations with similar situations and how it moved in the past. Much like a professional good pool player understands where to hit a ball to make it go in, verses a pro tour player who also understands the math. In both disciplines this: Often times this is mistaken for magic or art, but really its not. There is nothing mysterious or miraculous about it, its just pure practical math.
3. Chaos theory and Fluid Dynamic explains every complex patterns based upon trillions of variables. For example weather may seem to be random, but its not. Although Fluid Dynamics deals strictly with wind and water, its seems to be a better predictor of metal than chaos theory. The equations seem to plug in better with what is really happening on a macro level to dented panels. It also seems to hold true when reversing the Dynamics based upon the charts that Ive created to date.
4. Physics and Modern Crumple Zones: Cars are created to crumple when they crash. This will extend the length of the impact to reduce the acceleration of the stop. Unlike cars in the 1960’s newer cars have drastically changed the metals, around the 50 centemeters of crushable space, around occupants, newer cars dissipate about 60 tons of thrust from a given impact. Which is good for human bodies. Speed never kills people its the stoping really fast that does the trick.
5. Splash Analysis is something we used in the military for incoming mortar rounds, based upon the depth and angle of the strike we can determine, direction, type of round, and ultimately where the enemy is located. Therefore, it is essential to understand how to properly read the “splash” to understand where and how to best counterstrike the enemy. This parallels the preparation phase of PDR, in two ways: it allows you to understand how damage occurs and what key factors to look for within the splash.