Originally Posted by
TiHabanero
I am looking for conclusive proof in a study format that backs up what I see people putting out there. Not interested in tensile strength or what Jobst has to say about it. I am interested in the flex of the spoke when under load and the fatigue failure rate between DB and straight gauge spokes.
Spokes are not naturally occurring. They are designed by engineers. Engineers can look at a spoke failure and see what caused it and design against it. They test material samples and predict how they're going to fail in a design. That's where double butted (and all subsequent improved) spokes came from. I'd love to know when they were first used. I'm sure it was far before modern scientific studies of biology or behavior which mostly seem to be trying to find a statistical correlation between data.
If you're not interested in tensile strength, or shear strength, or modulus, or fatigue, perhaps you should be.