Destroyed thin kerf sm pic.jpg
I got curious about how much easier it was to damage a thin kerf saw blades than a regular kerf saw blade.

I worked on it most of the day and finally found the answer on Dr. Bruce Lehmann's website.http://www.thinkerf.com/

As saw plate gets thinner the stiffness of the saw blade falls off by the cube of the difference. If we take a saw blade that is 20% thinner than it has 80% of the original thickness. To calculate the difference in strength you take the 80% and multiply it by itself three times. Thus .8 x.8 x .8 = .512 or 51.2%.

Roughly a 20% reduction in saw plate thickness means about a 50% reduction in stiffness.