Hi Tim. Typically I'll try to customise the material to specific requirements of the client but the general approach is:
- Look at how to size welds to meet strength requirements to get us into thinking about welds.
- Study fatigue of unwelded materials.
- Think the whole thing through from the point of view of a crack.
- Identify why welds require a special methods for fatigue assessment.
- Spend sometime calculating fatigue lives.
- I bring along a lot of case studies to show the relevance of what is learned in real life situations.
- Oh and there are quite a lot of Excel tools to use - so that we don't get lost in the maths and we can bring the subject alive with some interactive charts.
We also finished each day with an engineering surgery where people bring their fatigue problems. This usually keeps me entertained on an evening
