This post is a reply to a recent LinkedIn questionon whether a low-energy impact really costs a bonded joint any fatigue life. It is a good question, and the answer has a number attached to it. The question was posed about aluminum-to-composite adhesively bonded joints:… Read more
Composite Materials in Turbofan Jet Engines | Structural Dynamics & Mechanics Vibrationdata · Structural Dynamics & Material Physics Composite Materials in Turbofan Jet Engines Aeromechanics, Centrifugal Mechanics, Impact Damage Tolerance, and Aeroelastic Tuning Introduction The modern high-bypass turbofan represents one of the most demanding optimization… Read more
A change to a single equation in ASME B31.3 has meaningful consequences for how piping displacement stress is evaluated in high-cycle service. The change is small in appearance and large in effect, and it is worth understanding both the arithmetic and the seventy years of… Read more
Introduction Nearly every utility-scale wind turbine built today has three blades. This was not inevitable. One-blade and two-blade machines were built and fielded in the 1980s and 1990s, and multi-blade rotors dominated the farm windmill era for a century. The three-blade configuration won a genuine… Read more
Ryanair FR1879 — Fault Tree Analysis | VibrationData VIBRATIONDATA · INCIDENT ANALYSIS T. IRVINE · 11 JUL 2026 A fault tree for the July 10 uncontained engine failure over North Macedonia — and why one seatbelt turned a repeat of Southwest 1380 into an injury… Read more
Introduction The Convair F2Y Sea Dart was one of the boldest experiments of the early jet age: a delta-wing, supersonic seaplane fighter that took off and landed on retractable hydro-skis in San Diego Bay. It remains the only seaplane ever to exceed the speed of… Read more
The carbon fiber automotive part in the photo above shows two composite engineering choices worth examining before it ever sees the road: the woven fabric architecture visible through the surface, and the glossy clear coat protecting it. Composite structures rarely fail in the fiber direction… Read more
Image https://empowering-technologies.com/metal-improvement/ultrasonic-impact-treatment/process/: Introduction Welded joints are the fatigue-critical details in most steel structures. The weld toe combines a sharp geometric stress concentration, tensile residual stresses approaching yield, and microscopic slag intrusions that act as pre-existing cracks. As a result, the fatigue strength of an as-welded… Read more
The image shows a MIL-S-901D Barge Test. A reader recently wrote in with two requests: (1) blog posts on surface ship shock and shock response spectra derived from acceleration data, and (2) coverage of underwater explosion (UNDEX) shock effects on submerged components such as batteries.… Read more
One of the most counterintuitive repair techniques in structural engineering is also one of the oldest: to stop a fatigue crack from growing, you drill a hole at its tip. Adding material loss to an already cracked structure seems like exactly the wrong prescription —… Read more