TWI has been at the leading edge of research into the implications fatigue has for design for more than half a century, and continues to invest in this area today.
Fatigue is a highly specialised area and not all of our member companies are able to maintain such expertise, creating a risk that design errors may be missed and potentially result in premature failures.
Discussions on fatigue assessment at the concept or early design stage may provide significant savings in design and fabrication costs, and could prevent costly fatigue failures, design changes and re-work.
Our expertise
Our fatigue analysis and testing section has more than 50 years’ experience in the area. TWI's Fatigue design rules for welded steel joints (1976) was the basis for the current British standard BS 7608 and is also the basis for Eurocode 3 and IIW documents.
We continue to serve on standards committees today, playing a leading role in the development of many current standards. These include the latest editions of BS 7608, BS 7910, Eurocode 3 and IIW guidance documents.
Our involvement with standards committees, along with other national and international committees overseeing design issues, makes us uniquely placed to provide expert guidance on fatigue design, whether you are seeking instant advice on code interpretation or a comprehensive fatigue assessment study.
The engineers in our fatigue analysis and testing team can carry out in-depth analyses of structures to identify the areas in which fatigue is likely to occur, provide information on the fatigue life improvement of existing structures and provide advice on current international standards for fatigue design and assessment.
We can also lend our expertise in cases of litigation, providing expert witness and arbitration services in disputes concerning liability.
Applications
Fatigue design considerations are relevant to design engineers in all industries, particularly power, oil and gas, construction and transport.
For more information about TWI's Structural Integrity and Corrosion Management services, please email contactus@twi.co.uk.