grav,
I'm going to reply to a couple of things you just said in a separate post in a
few minutes, but right now I want to suggest a test I just thought of.
Can you have your program calculate the force on a plane shape other than
a disk? Like, the force on a point at the middle of an edge of a square? Or
on the edge of a U-shape? Like this:
Code:
_____ _____
| | | |
| | | |
| |__.__| |
| |
|_______________|
The period indicates the location of the test point.
From your descriptions, I expect that your program will give a result of
infinite force toward the bottom of the U, and the force from the upper
part of the U, while calculated, will have no effect on the result. If it
does have an effect, that could tell you something about the problem.
You might want to use an L-shape instead of a U. The lopsidedness
could provide more diagnostic data.
-- Jeff, in Minneapolis