Fatigue (material) - Design Against Fatigue

Design Against Fatigue

Dependable design against fatigue-failure requires thorough education and supervised experience in structural engineering, mechanical engineering, or materials science. There are three principal approaches to life assurance for mechanical parts that display increasing degrees of sophistication:

  1. Design to keep stress below threshold of fatigue limit (infinite lifetime concept);
  2. Design (conservatively) for a fixed life after which the user is instructed to replace the part with a new one (a so-called lifed part, finite lifetime concept, or "safe-life" design practice);
  3. Instruct the user to inspect the part periodically for cracks and to replace the part once a crack exceeds a critical length. This approach usually uses the technologies of nondestructive testing and requires an accurate prediction of the rate of crack-growth between inspections. This is often referred to as damage tolerant design or "retirement-for-cause".

Read more about this topic:  Fatigue (material)

Famous quotes containing the words design and/or fatigue:

    To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.
    Marilyn French (20th century)

    Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of your bones.
    Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)