Often, products fail, and we don’t understand why! One of the reasons why such failures occur is not giving consideration for variation in load or stress levels. For example, potholes and speed breakers can create excessive stress on automobile suspensions; or larger number of clothes washed in a machine more often than the designer has considered; or a bus used in public transport would carry varying number of passengers! Designers often do not realize that the materials used in the product will also have variations! For example, wall thicknesses of castings will vary; or chemical composition of steel will vary from lot to lot! Thus, designers need to address the variations in usage patterns and variations in the materials used in the product as these can seriously affect reliability of systems! In my recently uploaded video, I have discussed how to predict reliability when load (stress) and strength of the part both vary and can be modelled using normal distribution. The video will also be very useful to those who wish to take ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer exam and all those who wish to learn the basics of reliability in design. This is the first video where the stress and strength can be modelled using normal distribution. In the next video related to this topic, I will explain reliability prediction using Monte Carlo Simulation.
[Read more…]Articles tagged Stress-strength analysis
An analysis of the strength of the materials and the interference of the stresses placed on the materials, where “materials” are not necessarily the raw goods or parts but can be an entire system. Stress–strength analysis provides a means to account for the range of expected and unexpected loads, thus minimizing failures.
The Perfect Strength and Stress Concepts
Recently Peter Stuttard asked if I knew of a reference for the perfect strength and perfect stress concepts. I didn’t and asked for a bit of explanation of the phrases.
Here is his reply (via Linkedin, btw a great tool to get and stay in touch) posted with permission with minor formatting edits.
To learn more about Peter check out his Linkedin profile.
Fred
Thanks for responding so quickly, the concepts of Perfect Strength and Perfect Stress are related to your discussion re Parts Count and Parts Stress predictions and reading this on your web site prompted me to ask you about them. [Read more…]
The Stress-Strength Concept in Practice
Ideally, in every design of every component, the stress–strength relationship looks like this figure. The stress is well below the strength.
This implies there is very little chance of failure due to the element being overstressed.
Also, ideally, we fully characterize all stresses and all strengths for each element of a product. This is generally difficult to accomplish and it is rarely done to that extent.
Stress Strength Normal Assumption
Ideally, in every design of every component, the stress – strength relationship looks like this figure. The stress is well below the strength. [Read more…]