Titanium Dwell Fatigue

Introduction Most engineers have an intuitive feel for fatigue: apply a stress repeatedly, and eventually the material cracks — even if each individual load is well below the static yield strength. Dwell fatigue adds a further, less intuitive twist. Dwell fatigue occurs when a sustained… Read more

From Velocity to Energy: A Strain Energy Density Approach to Shock and Vibration Fatigue

Introduction Shock and vibration environments are almost always characterized in terms of velocity. The shock response spectrum (SRS) is fundamentally a pseudo-velocity construct. Random vibration specifications are integrated to give RMS velocity as a check on response severity. Field data from accelerometers is routinely converted… Read more

Strain Energy Density in Fatigue & Fracture

Image reference: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0020740323003296 Introduction Classical fatigue analysis is built on stress. The stress-life (S-N) approach correlates nominal stress amplitude to cycles to failure; the strain-life ($\varepsilon$-N) approach handles the plasticity at notch roots through the Coffin-Manson equation; linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) characterizes crack growth… Read more

The Challenge of the Ringing Moon: Structural Dynamics and Fatigue Design for Lunar Habitats

As NASA’s Artemis program and international space agencies transition from short-duration sorties to a sustained human presence on the Moon, mission planners and structural engineers must confront a mechanical hazard that received little attention during the Apollo era: lunar seismicity. The Moon is not a… Read more

Fatigue Cracks in Anodized Coatings

Image reference: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adem.202300394 What Is Anodizing? Anodizing is widely used to improve corrosion resistance and surface durability in aluminum and other light metals. However, under cyclic loading, anodized coatings can play a surprising, and sometimes detrimental, role in fatigue performance. This post walks through why… Read more

Turbine Engine Blade-off Test

Rolls Royce Engine Blade-off Test     Video Link 1     Video Link 2 The engine blade-off test is performed to make sure that the engine can survive a fan. compressor or turbine blade breaking off within the engine, without fragments being ejected through the outside… Read more

Fatigue Analysis Webinars

This is a work-in-progress… The fatigue units are available to students who enroll in the Shock & Vibration course series. __________________________________________________________________ M.H.A. Bonte, A. de Boer, R. Liebregts, Prediction of mechanical fatigue caused by multiple random excitations:  stress_psd_1.pdf Dr.-Ing. Marinus Luegmair, Dr.-Ing. Alexander Ziehl, Von Mises… Read more