Verification and Validation of Accelerated Testing Methods for Fatigue Life Assessment

Download or read book Verification and Validation of Accelerated Testing Methods for Fatigue Life Assessment written by Limin Luo and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fatigue-related durability and reliability performance is one of the most important concerns in many engineering applications, such as for ground vehicles, aircrafts, and power generation systems. Product designers, validation engineers, and manufacturers are under continuous and increasing pressure to reduce the "design cycle" and "time to market" of products while assuring high levels of durability and reliability of these products. To achieve these goals, a number of accelerated testing methods have been developed, with some of them being applied very successfully to engineering applications. Because the ability to assess the fatigue life of an engineering component or system from the accelerated testing results is of great importance, the verification and validation of the accelerated testing methods is becoming critical to properly interpret the predicted results and decision making. In today's highly regulated world, there are many regulations, guidelines, standards, and specifications for conducting accelerated testing, data analysis, and methods verification. However, methods are being continuously revised or enhanced by absorbing more advanced developments to address the fundamental issues or specific needs of a given application, or both. In this paper, two fundamental accelerated testing methods are reviewed and thoroughly investigated: (1) the test-to-failure method and (2) degradation testing. Several key issues are identified in this paper with emphasis on the verification and validation of several new concepts and methodologies. Case studies are provided to demonstrate the critical issues identified.