Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The impact of design on manufacturing industry
- 2 Expertise required for the design process
- 3 An introduction to materials
- 4 Properties of metals and alloys
- 5 Properties of ceramics
- 6 Properties of polymers
- 7 Properties of composites
- 8 Materials' performance in service
- 9 Finishes and coatings as protective systems
- 10 Materials reliability and service life
- 11 Factors controlling the selection of substitute materials
- 12 Material forming processes and design
- 13 Sources of information on materials
- 14 Standards and materials
- References
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Materials reliability and service life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The impact of design on manufacturing industry
- 2 Expertise required for the design process
- 3 An introduction to materials
- 4 Properties of metals and alloys
- 5 Properties of ceramics
- 6 Properties of polymers
- 7 Properties of composites
- 8 Materials' performance in service
- 9 Finishes and coatings as protective systems
- 10 Materials reliability and service life
- 11 Factors controlling the selection of substitute materials
- 12 Material forming processes and design
- 13 Sources of information on materials
- 14 Standards and materials
- References
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For any company and its products to be successful in the market-place, most products must have a worthwhile lifetime and reliability in service to match the expectations of the purchaser. In order to achieve this the designer, among others, must have some feel for the ways in which the useful life in service of a material can be estimated, and must reflect these factors in his design. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss briefly some aspects of prediction of service life and the design needed to ensure that this life and a safe product results. Consideration of the design decisions for correct materials choice and the mechanisms of failure of materials in service is focused on metals and plastics as examples of the whole field of materials.
Predicting service life
Materials respond to their environments in a time-dependent manner, which is usually forecast from accelerated laboratory experiments; results of experiments are compared with what has been seen under real service conditions to prove and extend their validity. Provided that accelerating factors for laboratory tests are correctly chosen, and that the tests themselves are correctly representative of real life service, it is reasonable to expect that results can be used to calculate what must be done to achieve a predetermined life in service. Laboratory tests which attempt to simulate, in an accelerated way, real life exposures must of course be truly representative in a mechanistic way.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Materials and the Designer , pp. 208 - 218Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987