Fatigue Analysis and Sorbothane

During the building procedure, whether it is a small item or a huge building, there are several things that have to be considered. The materials that are used have to be strong enough to perform under the specified stresses but flexible and cost effective. They also have to be reliable under the expected conditions that they will be used under.

Every type of material performs in expected ways under different types of situations. That is one of the ways that experts choose the types of materials that will be used to build a machine, a building or anything else.

Fatigue is one of the keys to predicting how long an item can be expected to be useful. For instance, will fatigue cause failure in a certain metal or other type of material faster in certain temperatures or will additional weight or shape change how long the item will last? These are all things that are considered during the design process. And the answers are never just guessed at numbers or hoped for results. Instead, the designer uses fatigue analysis to determine how long an item will possibly last. In the past, the analysis was done by using difficult to understand, tedious formulas.

In the modern era, fatigue analysis is done by using computers and specially designed software. While it may take some of the work out of the process, it does not change its importance at all. You still have to consider how long the material will last and how effective it will remain for that life cycle.

Fatigue analysis is important because it can be used to adjust a design and make adjustments based on stress or on other factors that can directly impact how long a product might actually last. For instance, if you know that you are building an item with a wide expanse of fairly thin, but durable metal, you might consider adding another equally thin material to the metal to reduce some of the damage that can be caused by vibration or movement. The material might also be used to reduce some of the expansion that is allowed to happen to the metal.
Expansion is a normal occurrence that happens when pressure or stress load is applied to metal. When the stress is removed, the material should remove to its normal, unstressed state. Eventually though, the stress of expansion and contractions can cause cracks or breaks to occur in the material which may reduce its overall strength.

Because Sorbothane is used to reduce some of the stress in certain types of materials, it can increase some of not only the stress but the usability of a material or application. If you know that a lifecycle might be only two years, because of fatigue analysis done in the past, you can investigate the addition of Sorbothane which might increase the life cycle and usefulness of the application.

Flexible and durable, Sorbothane is a material that is frequently selected because it is readily adaptable for a number of different applications.

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