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Option 2 utilizes "principle stress analysis" which was discovered by a German structural engineer named Otto Mohr in 1882. It is a proven mechanism for taking all the load data and resolving it to a single number. This is exactly the type of thing people are looking for (a single measure), but unless you are familiar with the technique it will sound like mumbo jumbo. Worse, from a business standpoint, the uninitiated may think we are making this stuff up just to make our product look good--and we do look good--when in fact it is a classic analysis tool.

Another option is to express the summary loads as percentage head load reduction. That still has problems, but at least it is less intimidating.

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Mohr's theory states that the largest pricipal stress will be used to predict failure. I assume you're going to force normalize your graph to compress it down to one line. Also, for directional purposes I'd suppose you'd use the same directions used to define vehicle centered coordinates, i.e. x-left, y-fore, z-down and mx-pitch, my-roll, mz-yaw.

James