3 ms·
This is a really good point... from what I've seen they estimated the strength with Finite Element Analysis in Solidworks, and went for a ~2x margin of safety.
by _yb2s 3y ago
This is a really good point... from what I've seen they estimated the strength with Finite Element Analysis in Solidworks, and went for a ~2x margin of safety. There seems to have been no attempt to experimentally determine the expected number of load cycles to failure, they only considered the theoretical case of a perfectly flawless composite with no wear and tear.
- ShroudedNight 3y agoIs 2x abstractly reasonable in this context? My [probably flawed] understanding in contexts such as hoisting is that safety margins of 5x are considered a bare minimum. Even crappy "Don't use this to lift things" chain is sold with 3x margins.
- _yb2s 3y agoYes, I don't know what the norm is in submarines, but I don't really trust simple engineering models, and think at least 5x is what I'd want in almost any context. I did see that DeepFlight Challenger, Steve Fossett's unused/untested carbon fiber sub which used the same basic design as Titan, was only built to a 1.5x margin of safety. Experimental tests suggested it was only safe for a one time use, and shouldn't be used for multiple dives.
- flaminHotSpeedo 3y agoDepending on the context 2x is within the realm of reasonable for things like aircraft. But yeah for stuff like bridges you're probably looking at something closer to 20x