Preface
This book is intended for use by practicing engineers in industry, but
formatted with examples and problems for use in a one-semester graduate
course.
Chapter 1 provides the data reduction techniques for fitting
experimental failure data to a statistical distribution. For the purposes
of this book only normal (Gaussian) and Weibull distributions are considered, but the techniques can be expanded to include other distributions,
including non-parametric distributions.
The main part of the book is Chapter 2, which applies probability and
computer analysis to fatigue, design, and variations of both. The essence of
this chapter is the ideas presented in Metal Fatigue (1959) edited by George
Sines and J. L. Waisman and considers the problem of having to deal with a
limited amount of engineering data. The discussions of fatigue by Robert C.
Juvinall in Stress, Strain, Strength (1967) and by J. H. Faupel and F.
Fisher in Engineering Design (1981), as well as the books by Edward
Haugen (1968) on the variation of parameters in fatigue, are successfully
combined into a single treatment of fatigue. This book is an extension
of Haugen’s book Probabilistic
Mechanical Design (1980) with
applications.
The concepts of optimization are developed in Chapter 3. The technique of geometric programming is presented and solutions to sample problems are compared with computer-generated non-linear programming
solutions. Reliability, the topic Chapter 4, is developed for mechanical systems and some failure rate data is presented as it can be hard to find.
The book is influenced by the consulting work I performed at Hughes
Aircraft Co. from 1977 to 1993. Some of the examples are drawn from this
effort.
Joy Fisher, worked in computer programming in the 1980s and 1990s
keeping track of the changing state of the art in computing and writing
for sections in this book dealing with programming.
//i
This book is intended for use by practicing engineers in industry, but
formatted with examples and problems for use in a one-semester graduate
course.
Chapter 1 provides the data reduction techniques for fitting
experimental failure data to a statistical distribution. For the purposes
of this book only normal (Gaussian) and Weibull distributions are considered, but the techniques can be expanded to include other distributions,
including non-parametric distributions.
The main part of the book is Chapter 2, which applies probability and
computer analysis to fatigue, design, and variations of both. The essence of
this chapter is the ideas presented in Metal Fatigue (1959) edited by George
Sines and J. L. Waisman and considers the problem of having to deal with a
limited amount of engineering data. The discussions of fatigue by Robert C.
Juvinall in Stress, Strain, Strength (1967) and by J. H. Faupel and F.
Fisher in Engineering Design (1981), as well as the books by Edward
Haugen (1968) on the variation of parameters in fatigue, are successfully
combined into a single treatment of fatigue. This book is an extension
of Haugen’s book Probabilistic
Mechanical Design (1980) with
applications.
The concepts of optimization are developed in Chapter 3. The technique of geometric programming is presented and solutions to sample problems are compared with computer-generated non-linear programming
solutions. Reliability, the topic Chapter 4, is developed for mechanical systems and some failure rate data is presented as it can be hard to find.
The book is influenced by the consulting work I performed at Hughes
Aircraft Co. from 1977 to 1993. Some of the examples are drawn from this
effort.
Joy Fisher, worked in computer programming in the 1980s and 1990s
keeping track of the changing state of the art in computing and writing
for sections in this book dealing with programming.
//i