Predicting the Reliability of Brittle Material Structures Subjected to Transient Proof Test and Service Loading

Noel N. Nemeth, Osama M. Jadaan, Tamas Palfi, Eric H. Baker

Research output: Chapter or Contribution to BookOther contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Brittle materials today are being used, or considered, for a wide variety of high tech applications that operate in harsh environments, including static and rotating turbine parts, thermal protection systems, dental prosthetics, fuel cells, oxygen transport membranes, radomes, and MEMS. Designing brittle material components to sustain repeated load without fracturing while using the minimum amount of material requires the use of a probabilistic design methodology. The NASA CARES/Life 1 (Ceramic Analysis and Reliability Evaluation of Structure/Life) code provides a general-purpose analysis tool that predicts the probability of failure of a ceramic component as a function of its time in service. This capability includes predicting the time-dependent failure probability of ceramic components against catastrophic rupture when subjected to transient thermomechanical loads (including cyclic loads). The developed methodology allows for changes in material response that can occur with temperature or time (i.e. changing fatigue and Weibull parameters with temperature or time). For this article an overview of the transient reliability methodology and how this methodology is extended to account for proof testing is described. The CARES/Life code has been modified to have the ability to interface with commercially available finite element analysis (FEA) codes executed for transient load histories. Examples are provided to demonstrate the features of the methodology as implemented in the CARES/Life program.
Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationFracture Mechanics of Ceramics
Pages555-578
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2005
Externally publishedYes

Disciplines

  • Other Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering
  • Engineering

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