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Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 23 July 2008
There have been major advances in methods of fatigue life estimation over the past 30 years. Allowable stresses can now be estimated to an accuracy of a few percent. Much of this knowledge is available in research papers but is not readily available to designers. This new publication is intended to bridge the gap between research and design by providing a concise introduction to modern methods of fatigue analysis as well as the more traditional methods.
The contents have been developed as course notes for training courses presented in Europe, North America and Asia to engineers who need to apply fatigue knowledge in engineering design, fatigue testing and failure investigation. The book will also be of value to academics and undergraduates on mechanical engineering courses.
The book assumes no prior knowledge of metal fatigue. It introduces the concepts of strain-based fatigue analysis and the more traditional S-N curve methods. Modern theories of multiaxial fatigue are described, together with their application to strain gauge measurements and fatigue analysis of finite element models. There are chapters on statistical analysis, crack propagation, and fatigue of welded steel joints. The final chapters discuss the merits and disadvantages of different types of fatigue tests, and aspects of practical fatigue analysis. Throughout the book the emphasis is on practical application.
About the author:
John Draper worked as a fatigue design specialist in the aircraft industry, then as a project manager in British Rail R&D Division for fatigue research projects, and failure investigation projects using service strain measurement.
He formed Safe Technology Limited in 1987 to develop fatigue analysis software from strain gauges and FE models, and provide fatigue –related consultancy services.
He has supervised SMART award projects and teaching company schemes in fatigue. He acts as a consultant to companies in a wide range of industries, including ground vehicles, medical equipment, diesel engines, wind energy and welded fabrications. He is a regularly invited presenter at conferences in the UK, Europe, Asia and the USA.
He is Chairman of Safe Technology Limited, past Chairman of the Engineering Integrity Society and the Ground Vehicle Instrumentation Group, and an Honorary Visiting Professor to Sheffield Hallam University.
REVIEW By Professor Andrew Sherry, Director, Materials Performance Centre, and Director, Nuclear EngD Centre University of Manchester
John Draper’s book Modern Metal Fatigue Analysis provides a highly readable and comprehensive introduction to the study of fatigue behaviour of metals and alloys for students, a description of the details of fatigue assessment methods for the design engineer, and includes a level of detail that expert practitioners will find useful. The book opens with a general description of the key elements of fatigue crack initiation and propagation under cyclic loading. With clear figures, a clarity of description, and many practical examples, the book outlines the material response to simple and complex cyclic loading.
Modern Metal Fatigue Analysis opens with an overview of hysteresis, stress concentration and crack closure. Fatigue test methods are described and engineering approaches for the assessment of fatigue are presented. This includes a summary of data requirements, a description of the rainfall method, and an overview of stress concentration factors for notches. The tools available to the design and structural integrity engineer for considering fatigue under uniaxial, biaxial and triaxial stress states are described, including simple engineering approaches on the one hand and more complex finite element analysis on the other. A description of the treatment fatigue crack growth is also provided with characteristic clarity. This incorporates an overview of the principles of linear elastic fracture mechanics including an overview of the meaning and application of the stress intensity factor.
Finally Modern Metal Fatigue Analysisaddresses issues relating to the statistical analysis of fatigue behaviour, issues associated with the analysis of welds (including residual stresses), the use of the power spectral density diagram (auto-spectral density), and the concept of cumulative damage. The book includes an appendix describing the Verity® mesh-insensitive structural stress method for fatigue analysis of welded joints.
John Draper has succeeded in providing a comprehensive, readable and clear scientific textbook on fatigue and fatigue assessment that materials science and engineering students, design engineers and structural integrity practitioners will find extremely useful.
Copies of the book can be purchased from the EMAS website.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 10 June 2008
Safe Technology Ltd (UK) has appointed Exemplar as re-seller of its fatigue analysis software tools in Italy.
Exemplar, Torino, Italy, will sell fe-safe™, the advanced suite of software for fatigue analysis from FEA. “fe-safe™’s high-end fatigue analysis capability fits well with Exemplar’s total engineering solution portfolio,” said Exemplar President, Fabrizio Trentini. “We are commiteed to adopting innovative software solutions that enable designers to achieve success in highly competitive markets, and one way of achieving this is by partnering with the world’s leading engineering software development organizations like Safe Technology.”
Exemplar’s experienced team offer software solutions, training, support and engineering services including Linear and Static Analysis, Termal & Structural Analysis, Optimization, CFD and Fatigue Analysis.
Safe Technology’s CEO, Professor John Draper, said: “Exemplar and Safe Technology’s customers represent a diverse range of industries. Safe Technology’s success in fatigue design and life assessment in the ground-vehicle, medical, machine design, defence and academic sectors around the world complements Exemplar’s expertise in providing software solutions in these sectors in Italy.”
About Exemplar srl
Exemplar’s experienced team operates in the field of innovative services to companies by selling the software products for PIDO & CAE of the most important international software houses.
Exemplar supplies solutions with a high added value, offering methodologies based on customer specific requirements. Located in Turin (Italy) in the Incubator I3P of the University "Politecnico di Torino" and also linked to other Universities, emphasizing the strong connection between Exemplar and the world of Research and Technological Innovation.
See the resellers page for contact details.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 7 March 2008
The February issue of Power Engineering International features fe-safe/TURBOlife™ and looks at how the software can be utilized to prevent plant fatigue failures.
Read the full article here.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 3rd March 2008
Altair Engineering are to host safe Technology's Durability by Design seminar and Modern Metal Fatigue Analysis 3 day theory course at their facilities in Troy, Michigan in June.
We are delighted that our long-term partner Altair Engineering will host these events. Safe Technology and Altair have worked together closely since 2000 when Safe Technology first joined the Altair Partners Program. Since then the 2 companies have worked together on a number of events and have worked closely to ensure the tight integration of fe-safe™, Verity® and the Hyperworks™ software suite. Altair offers the ‘Weld Finder’ tool for the speedy application of the Verity® method in fe-safe™ using Hypermesh™. Altair Engineering has also chosen fe-safe™ as their standard fatigue tool for their consultancy group.
Similar events we held at Altair’s fantastic conference facilities in 2006 drew a great crowd so book your place early to avoid disappointment!
See the training page for further details.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 20th October 2007
Download Papers and Presentations here
Safe Technology Ltd (UK) held its 3rd successful fe-safe™ User Group Meeting last month in Michigan, USA. The meeting was described as “Highly Informative and Useful” by top Safe Technology customers.
The keynote presentation “Predicting Mechanical Failure using the Theory of Critical Distances” came from Professor David Taylor, Associate Professor in Materials Engineering at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Professor Taylor’s work is concerned with fracture and fatigue of materials, with particular interest in the failure of engineering components and of biomedical materials.
The event included user presentations from Paccar, Leading Edge and Volvo Trucks North America. Subjects included Transient Dynamics, a Comparative Study of Fatigue Results of fe-safe™ Using Neuber’s Rule and Incremental Plasticity Method, and a look at the different applications of fe-safe™ within Chassis & Vehicle Dynamics Analysis.
Safe Technology staff gave presentations providing an update on fe-safe™ v5.4, Verity® in fe-safe v2, and a look forward to the new features expected in fe-safe™ v6 as well as a paper on Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue.
The User Meeting was followed by two very well attended workshops hosted by Professor David Taylor and Dr Pingsha Dong, developer of Verity®, the revolutionary structural stress method developed by Battelle for the fatigue analysis of welded structures. Prof Taylor presented a Workshop looking at his Theory of Critical Distances. The workshop gave attendees the opportunity to explore the Theory of Critical Distances, look at why it works and why we need a theory like this in industrial design, including case studies showing how the TCD has been used to predict fatigue in actual engineering components. Dr Dong’s “Verity® Module in fe-safe™” workshop gave Verity® users the opportunity to participate in a round-table discussions regarding their experiences with the structural stress method and offer user feedback regarding the module.
“The fe-safe™ User Group Meeting goes from strength to strength! We are delighted to provide this forum to give our users the opportunity to share experiences on matters of fatigue to help increase fatigue knowledge and understanding of fe-safe™, its capabilities and its applications,” said John Draper, CEO, Safe Technology Ltd
“This is my first fe-safe™ UGM and I thought it was great. All the topics covered were very diverse and it was really helpful.”
Ravi Pattu, General Motors
“Presentations were informative and useful” Kevin Eldridge, Dofascoe Automotive Components
“Enjoyed and learned - thanks!” Steve Nagai, Delphi
“The content of the presentations was great!” Ravi Joshi, DANA
Safe Technology Ltd is a technical leader in the design and development of durability analysis software. Based in Sheffield, UK, the company is privately owned and is unique in its dedication to the field of fatigue and durability analysis software. Working with worldwide partners and distributors, Safe Technology develops and sells the fe-safe™ suite of software which also incorporates signal processing software and specialist add-on modules covering thermo-mechanical fatigue, creep fatigue and the analysis of rotating components as well as the Verity® structural stress method for the fatigue analysis of welds.
Press Release, Columbus, OH, 13th September 2007
Columbus, OH: When the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) publishes the latest version of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Codes it will signify a monumental breakthrough in how industry addresses weld fatigue. It also marks a crowning achievement for Battelle scientist Dr. Pingsha Dong. Section VIII, Division 2 of the Code will now include Battelle’s Mesh-Insensitive Structural Stress method as an alternative means for predicting fatigue and fatigue life. The method is also known as the master S-N curve method signifying its ability to correlate a massive amount of actual fatigue test data into a single S-N curve. The Verity® method is implemented in fe-Safe™ — a leading fatigue software package distributed by UK-based Safe Technology Ltd.
Because Dong’s mesh-insensitive structural stress method provides a level of predictability never before seen and can be easily applied, it was originally viewed as too good to be true. After years of rigorous testing through a Joint Industry Project that has applied Verity® in a series of complex scenarios, Verity® was proven to be a more reliable method of predicting the point at which a weld would fail than any previous technology.
“There are two aspects of Battelle’s method that make it such a monumental achievement for industry,” said David Osage, President and CEO of The Equity Engineering Group Inc and lead consultant in the re-write of Section VIII, Division 2 Code. “First, we have never been able to achieve the consistent and accurate results that this method provides and secondly, and maybe equally as important, is that it is very easy to apply and can be incorporated seamlessly into current codes and standards.”
"For the past 20 or 30 years, experts in the field have been trying to address the inadequacies in stress analysis for the fatigue design of welded structures so that companies would not have to compensate for poorly correlated test data," Dong said. "Eventually, industry and academia gave up, concluding that the significant variability inherent in existing empirical-based stress analysis approaches, such as various surface-extrapolation-based hot spot stress methods, is a fact of life. We did not give up."
The ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code establishes construction rules for new boilers and pressure vessels as well as nuclear power plant components. This code is required for use by most regulatory bodies in North America, but is also broadly used internationally.
Osage noted that Verity® has been included in a fitness-for-service standard produced jointly by the American Petroleum Institute and ASME entitled API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 Fitness-For-Service, which is used for the remaining life evaluation of in-service pressurized equipment. The use of Verity® in this standard illustrates the flexibility of the method; i.e., it can be used for the design of new equipment as well as the evaluation of existing equipment.
Any breakthrough of this magnitude is sure to raise eyebrows, and the path to adopt Dong’s method into the codes was not easy. Since there had been little advancement in fatigue prediction, and Dong’s methodology produced results that were previously thought to be impossible, many industry veterans questioned that such a solution could exist. Years of validating data and presentations to ASME’s constituency were required to turn skeptics into believers. It was this battle, and the support Dong received not only from Battelle, but also from members of the ASME, that makes this achievement so special, he said.
About ASME:
Originating in 1914, the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code has been adopted in part or in its entirety by 49 states and numerous municipalities and territories of the United States and all the provinces of Canada. It is kept current by the Boiler and Pressure Committee, a volunteer group of more then 950 engineers that meets regularly to consider requests for interpretations, revision, and to develop new rules. In the formulation of its rules and in the establishment of maximum design and operating pressures, the Committee considers technological advances including materials, construction, methods of fabrication, inspection, certification, and overpressure protection.
About American Petroleum Institute (API):
API is the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. Its 400 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators, and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry.
About Battelle:
Battelle provides solutions to some of the world’s most important challenges through its three global businesses: National Security, Energy Science and Technology, and Health and Life Sciences. Battelle is the world’s largest independent research and development organization with technology contributions that find their way into hundreds of commercial products each year. Conducting $3.8 billion in global R&D annually, Battelle oversees 20,000 employees in more than 120 locations worldwide, including five national laboratories Battelle manages or co-manages for the U.S. Department of Energy. Headquartered in Columbus , Ohio, and established in 1929 as a non-profit charitable trust, Battelle focuses on societal and economic impact and actively supports and promotes science and math education.
For more information, visit www.battelle.org or contact National Media Relations Manager Katy Delaney at 410-306-8638 or at delaneyk@battelle.org.
Press Release, Columbus, OH: 10 June 2007
Battelle will host experts from around the world for a course detailing its mesh-insensitive structural stress method for fatigue evaluation of welded structures, July 11-12 in Paris, France.
Battelle's method also is known as the Verity® module in fe-safe™, a leading fatigue software package distributed by Safe Technology. Battelle's fatigue method achieved a significant industry milestone recently when it was adopted in the 2007 ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (Section VIII, Div. 2) and the new joint API (American Petroleum Institute) and ASME Fitness-for-Service (FFS) Standard API 579-1/ASME FFS-1. The new code and FFS standard will be published this summer. The Paris course provides an opportunity for engineers from around the world to become familiar with the method before the new code takes effect.
Pingsha Dong, the developer of the Verity® method, will lead the course and discuss the detailed technical background behind the structural stress method in the new ASME Code and its various applications in fatigue design and life predictions. The course will provide a unique opportunity for those in attendance to learn the details of the method and become familiar with the critical issues associated with fatigue of welded joints and existing design and analysis methods.
Dr. Dong also will teach a session on residual stress and distortion control in the same course series. One of the focus areas in this session will be on a unified residual stress estimate scheme developed by Dr. Dong for performing effective fitness-for-service assessment of engineering components. This estimation scheme also has been adopted by the new API 579-1/ASME FFS-1 to be published later this year.
For details on the course agenda, to register, or for information on hotel accommodations, please see EURO-courses-July-2007.pdf.
Battelle is the world's largest non-profit independent research and development organization, with 20,000 employees in more than 120 locations worldwide, including five national laboratories, Battelle manages or co-manages for the U.S. Department of Energy. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Battelle conducts $3.8 billion in R&D annually through contract research, laboratory management, and technology commercialization. Battelle provides innovative solutions to some of the world's most important problems including global climate change, sustainable energy technologies, high performance materials, next generation healthcare diagnostics and therapeutics, and advanced security solutions for people, infrastructure, and the nation. Battelle has a long history of developing successful commercial products in collaboration with its clients, ranging from products to fight diabetes, cancer, and heart disease to the development of the office copier machine (Xerox). As a non-profit charitable trust with an eye toward the future, Battelle actively supports and promotes science and math education.
For more information, visit www.battelle.org
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 10 June 2007
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Hari Agrawal has joined Safe Technology Ltd as an Engineering Consultant. Based in the US, his considerable experience will add to Safe Technology’s fatigue expertise by providing worldwide support on training and analysis for Verity® module in fe-safe™. Safe Technology Ltd develops and markets fe-safe™, a technically advanced software suite for fatigue prediction from finite element models. Verity® is the revolutionary structural stress method developed by Battelle’s Dr Pingsha Dong for the fatigue of welded structures. Verity® has won several prestigious industry awards and was last year licensed to Safe Technology Ltd to create an add-on module in fe-safe™ for weld fatigue life prediction. fe-safe and Verity® module in fe-safe™ have been chosen by companies such as Equity Engineering, American Axle and Emerson for the fatigue life prediction of welded joints. “Hari Agrawal is a well-known and respected figure in the field of durability and design with extensive practical experience in automotive sheet metal, welding, rivets, manufacturing, design, teaching and leadership. Hari was also instrumental in the development and support of FLOW, the internal fatigue package at Ford that includes a weld fatigue capability based on the Verity® methodology and developed in close collaboration with Dr Pingsha Dong. He will certainly enhance Safe Technology’s highly experienced technical team.” said Safe Technology’s CEO, John Draper. |
Hari N. Agrawal |
Mr. Hari N. Agrawal completed his B.S.M.E. in Honors from M.B.M. Engineering College, Jodhpur, India and his M.S.M.E. from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He joined Ford Motor Co. in 1978 in its Structural Analysis Department and retired in March 2007. At Ford, he worked as Senior Technical Specialist in its Body CAE & Durability CAE Development and Pre-program Department of Advanced Vehicle Technology, Product Development. Here he also led the development of advanced Durability/fatigue CAE Methods (sheet metal and weld/rivet fatigue), Processes, Tools, and Integration for customer driven automobiles. He has more than 100 internal and external technical publications to his credit and has obtained many notable awards and patents including membership as SAE Fellow.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 23 May 2007
In May, Safe Technology ran a series of workshops in India in association with fe-safe™ resellers ProSIM and Safe Technology partners, ABAQUS. The sessions were a combination of fatigue and durability seminars and hands-on workshops using fe-safe™.
The fatigue seminars offered a technology update in key areas of fatigue analysis and the problems that can now be solved using durability analysis software for FEA models. The fe-safe™ workshops provided in depth information and hands on experience in simulating real world industrial problems in fatigue and durability. Topics covered included fatigue and durability of rotating components, thermo-mechanical fatigue, weld strength analysis, signal processing, uniaxial and multi axial fatigue loading analysis, sequences of FEA solutions, durability analysis of suspension components and steering systems, life assessment analysis of turbine blades, turbo-chargers etc.
The seminars were held in Bangalore, Chennai and Pune and were all extremely well-attended, including approximately 100 engineers running fe-safe™ at each of the hands-on training sessions. Company’s represented at the events included TATA, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hitachi, Gas Turbine Research Inst, GE, Delphi TVS, TI, John Deere, Dana, Cummins and Caterpillar Inc.
The trip also included a presentation by John Draper to the Aeronautical Society of India, Bangalore, attended by 140 engineers.
fe-safe™ training in Bangalore, India
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 8 May 2007
American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) has selected fe-safe™ and Verity® module in fe-safe™, the structural stress method for fatigue evaluation of welded structures.
American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) is a world leader in the design, engineering, validation and manufacture of driveline systems, chassis systems, and metal-formed products for trucks, sport utility vehicles, and passenger cars.
fe-safe™ is a technically advanced fatigue analysis software suite for FEA models and incorporates the most sophisticated fatigue analysis technology available in commercial software. Verity® is the revolutionary structural stress method developed by Battelle for the fatigue of welded structures. Verity® has won several prestigious industry awards and was last year licensed exclusively to Safe Technology Ltd to create an add-on module in fe-safe™ for weld fatigue life prediction (Verity® module in fe-safe™).
Safe Technology Ltd is a technical leader in the design and development of durability analysis software. Based in the UK, the company is privately owned and is unique in its sole dedication to the field of fatigue and durability analysis software. Working with worldwide partners and distributors, Safe Technology develops and sells the fe-safe™ suite of software which also incorporates signal processing software and specialist add on modules covering weld fatigue evaluation (Verity®), thermo-mechanical fatigue, creep fatigue and the analysis of rotating components.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 7 March 2007
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Safe Technology Limited is pleased to announce that renowned high-temperature fatigue specialist, Dr Radwan Hazime, has joined Safe Technology’s highly experienced technical team. Dr Radwan Hazime completed his PhD at Northeastern University in high temperature deformation and fracture, and was most recently employed with Ford Powertrain for eight years. As an Analytical Powertrain Technical Expert at Ford, Dr Hazime has extensive experience in thermo-mechanical fatigue, CAE durability method development and FE modeling. He won several awards during his time at Ford and has published a number of papers as well as being a regular presenter at SAE and other international conferences. He is also a certified 6-sigma black belt specializing in DFSS and Analytical Reliability and Robustness. His role as DFSS black belt included the development, deployment, and teaching of state-of-the-art tools used for robust design and multi-objective optimization. He has been recognized by the International Quality and Productivity Center for his work in this area. Dr Hazime has also taught college level engineering courses and conducted research in the Engineering Departments at Northeastern University and The University of Arizona. |
Dr Radwan Hazime |
Dr Hazime will be based at Safe Technology’s Michigan office. As Manager, Technical Operations USA, Dr Hazime will work with Safe Technology’s experienced engineering and software team to offer fatigue knowledge, technical support and consultancy services.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 7 March 2007
In association with the Equity Engineering Group, Safe Technology Ltd presents a series of fatigue and durability seminars conducted by noted fatigue & durability authority, Professor John Draper. These seminars explore modern fatigue theory and the practical application of durability and weld fatigue methodology including an introduction to fe-safe™ and Verity® in fe-safe™.
See the training page for further details.
Press Release, Sheffield, UK, 8 February 2007
The Engineering Integrity Society has announced the Final Programme for Fatigue 2007, Fatigue and Durability Assessment of Materials, Components and Structures. Safe Technology is sponsoring the event and CEO John Draper will present a paper on Verity®.
Come along and visit the Safe Technology booth and join us for lunch-time Verity® demo sessions!
The Conference will be held March 26th – 28th, at Queens’ College, Cambridge, UK, and offers a varied and highly technical programme of papers and research from world experts in the field.
John Draper, CEO of Safe Technology, will present a paper on Verity®, the mesh-insensitive structural stress methodology for the fatigue evaluation of welded structures, commercially available only in fe-safe™. The Verity® method, developed by Battelle researcher, Dr Pingsha Dong, has been validated against 3500 different types of welded joints by major companies and leading experts across a broad array of industries and is demonstrating unprecedented accuracy. Last year it was licensed exclusively to Safe Technology Ltd to create an add-on module in fe-safe™ for weld fatigue life prediction.
Plenary speakers over the three-day Fatigue 2007 conference will be Prof Jean-Louis Chaboche (ONERA, France); Prof Paul Bowen, (University of Birmingham, UK); Prof Grzegorz Glinka (University of Waterloo, Canada).
Keynote presentations will be made by: Prof R Sunder (BiSS Research, India); Prof Darrell Socie (University of Illinois, USA); Prof John Evans (University of Wales Swansea, UK), Prof Trevor Lindley (Imperial College, UK) and Prof Robert Ritchie (University of California, Berkeley, USA);
“The caliber of the papers submitted has allowed us to pull together an exciting programme of presentations from key personnel working and studying in the aerospace, marine, land based transport, manufacturing and materials processing sectors. This promises to be our most stimulating and broad-ranging fatigue conference yet,” said Fatigue 2007 convenor, Martin Bache.
Session titles include Weld Fatigue Analysis; Ceramics; Contact Fatigue; Experimental Techniques; Fabricated Structures; High Temperature / TMF; Industrial Service; Lifing Techniques; Materials and Microstructure; Multi-axial; Peening; Polymeric Materials; Processing and Manufacturing; Surface Defects and Variable Amplitude.
The Engineering Integrity Society is a UK based organisation promoting the academic and social advancement of engineering. These aims are achieved through regular technical seminars, conferences and meetings to review current engineering practice within the academic and industrial environment.
The Final Programme and booking form for Fatigue 2007 are available online at e-i-s.org.uk.