Help and Configuration

The ESDU basics

ESDU divides the engineering information into Series, each covering a specific topic. The Series are organised into Sections. Each Section comprises a number of self-contained but related design and analysis guides, the Data Items, covering a specific engineering component or problem, with, in many cases, associated computer programs.

ESDU also make available various industry-specific Collections and Packages which consist of collections of Data Items and other documents applicable to a particular industry.

This site contains all the ESDU Data Items and associated software. In total the ESDU engineering design information is divided into 18 Series with more than 350 Sections containing some 1500 Data Items with over 250 software programs.

In addition to the ESDU validated information we also supply relevant ancillary documentation from, for example, NACA and NASA.

More information on ESDU can be found in About Us.

Configuration

The ESDU web site is a mix of HTML, PDFs and executable programs.

Web browser requirements: We have endeavoured to make the ESDU site fully web standards compliant. ESDU supports the use of generic web standards and we intend our site to be fully usable and functional on any platform and any recent browser.

You must enable Javascript and permit cookies from esdu.com for the ESDU site to function correctly.

In developing and testing the site we have successfully used the following operating systems and browsers.

Microsoft Windows

  • Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Internet Explorer is not supported.

Other

  • Safari, Firefox and Chrome on Mac OS
  • Safari, Firefox and Chrome on iPad
  • Chrome and Firefox on Android

If you have any problems using this site please contact us.

Data Items and documents: A Data Item is self-contained design and analysis guide covering a specific engineering component or problem with, in many cases, associated computer programs (Toolbox Apps, ESDUpacs, VIEWpacs) and Interactive Graphs.

Data Items are fully validated by ESDU.

Documents from other sources, for example NASA, are not validated by ESDU and are provided as a service to our customers.

To view the ESDU Data Items and most other ESDU supplied documents you will need a PDF viewer. We test all documents using the freely available Adobe Reader. Other PDF viewers (such as those provided by modern web browsers) will usually render an ESDU PDF correctly.

Toolbox Apps: A Toolbox App is a very user-friendly program that runs entirely within your browser, allowing you to run a calculation without having to download or install anything onto your computer..

In most cases they provide a wrapper for an ESDUpac program (see below) that runs on the ESDU servers. You provide the input, via the Toolbox App, hit the 'Run' button, and your calculation is performed and your results returned.

Other Toolbox Apps are substantially more capable. For example, the ASTEROID and LiCrA programs are fully featured suites of considerable power.

Note that any data you supply to us, using a Toolbox App or an ESDUpacs Online run, is never looked at or kept by ESDU. We use your input data to run your requested calculation and, once the results are returned to you, we immediately delete any and all data for that program run.

ESDUpac programs: An ESDUpac is a computer program designed to perform a specific engineering calculation associated with a specific Data Item.

Where possible an ESDUpac is provided via our 'ESDUpacs Online' system. This allows you to run the ESDUpac code without having to download or install anything onto your computer. Example inputs from the Data Item are provided.

Otherwise ESDUpacs are available as ZIP files for you to download. This ZIP file contains a PC executable version (a .exe file) of the ESDUpac which can be immediately used on any Microsoft PC operating system.

See also:

VIEWpac programs: Most VIEWpacs are 'wrapper' programs that provide a user-friendly interface to an ESDUpac program (see above), which, in turn, implements some engineering calculation described in the accompanying Data Item. Others are 'stand-alone' programs or spreadsheets that do not include an ESDUpac.

Increasingly, VIEWpacs are being replaced by Toolbox Apps.

For Excel spreadsheets, Matlab programs, and native Microsoft Windows applications, VIEWpacs are supplied as an executable code downloaded from this site in a ZIP file.

Interactive graphs: An Interactive Graph is an electronic version of the graphs presented in the Data Items.

Such a graph offers the following features:

  • The ability to click anywhere within the bounds of a graph to automatically populate the co-ordinate fields with calculated values.
  • Input users' co-ordinate to plot interstitial curves on carpet plots.
  • Zoom in on areas of the graph to pin point co-ordinates. The axes are re-drawn with the zoom feature.
  • Values associated to lines are shown by hovering over with the mouse.
  • Graphs may be saved or printed for inclusion in reports.
Metallic Materials Data Handbook (MMDH): MMDH is purely HTML and is viewable in any web browser. You must have Javascript enabled to view the Specification figures and to print the Specification Tables.