Engineering Scales

There are major 3 types of scales in Engineering Drawing/Graphics. 1) Plain Scale, 2) Vernier Scale, and 3) Diagonal Scale. There are also other types of scales available like Comparative Scales and Scale of Chords. But these scales are used for comparing two different units and measuring/constructing angles respectively.

In this post, we are going to focus on the first 3 types of Engineering Scales. We are going to solve a total of 4 different questions on Engineering Scales. Two of them will be of Plain Scale and the other two will be of Vernier Scale and Diagonal Scale respectively.

Questions:

Construct a scale of 1:5 to show decimeters(dm) and centimeters(cm) and read up to 1 meter. Show 7.6 dm on it.
On a map of a state, 1cm represents 5 km. Construct a plain scale capable of measuring the distance between two cities 100 km far from each other. Calculate R.F. & show the distance of 73 km on the scale.
Construct a Vernier scale to read centimeters and long enough to measure up to 3 meters. Take RF = 1/25. Mark it as a distance of 1.42 meters.
The marina beach at Chennai is 2.5 km long, on the inspection of the road map its equivalent distance measures 5 cm. draw a diagonal scale to read 50 m minimum. Mark on the scale a distance of 6350 m.

We are going to move forward to our first question:

Question 1: Construct a scale of 1:5 to show decimeters(dm) and centimeters(cm) and read up to 1 meter. Show 7.6 dm on it.

Solution:

R.F. = 5/250000 = 2/100000
Max Length (M.L.) = 50 meters
Length of Scale (L.O.S.) = 700000 × 2/100000 = 14cm

Diagonal Scale

I hope you understood the solution very well. Now we are going to solve our second question which is as follows:

Question 2: On a map of a state, 1cm represents 5 km. Construct a plain scale capable of measuring the distance between two cities 100 km far from each other. Calculate R.F. & show the distance of 73 km on the scale.

Solution:

R.F. = 1/500000
Max Length(M.L.) = 100 km
Length of Scale(L.O.S.) = 1/500000 × 100 × 100000 = 20 cm

Plain Scale

I hope you understood the solution as well. Now we are going to solve our third question which will be on the Vernier Scale.

Question 3: Construct a Vernier scale to read centimeters and long enough to measure up to 3 meters. Take RF = 1/25. Mark it at a distance of 1.42 meters.

Solution:

R.F. = 1/25
Max Length (M.L.) = 3 meters
Length of Scale (L.O.S.) = 300 × 1/25 = 12 cm
Main Scale Division (M.S.D.) = 0.1 meter
Vernier Scale Division (V.S.D.) = 0.11 meter

Vernier Scale

I hope you understood the solution as well. Now we will move forward to solve our fourth question which will be on the Diagonal Scale.

Question 4: The marina beach at Chennai is 2.5 km long, on the inspection of the road map its equivalent distance measures 5 cm. draw a diagonal scale to read 50 m minimum. Mark on the scale a distance of 6350 m.

Solution:

R.F. = 5/250000 = 2/100000
Max Length (M.L.) = 50 meters
Length of Scale (L.O.S.) = 700000 × 2/100000 = 14cm

Diagonal Scale

I hope you understood all the solutions and questions very well. If you have any doubts, let me know in the comment section. Till then keep learning, and keep improving!