Please note: Due to alternative arrangements for teaching and
assessment in place from 18 March 2020 to mitigate against the restrictions in
place due to COVID-19, information shown for 2019/20 may not always be accurate.
Please note: you are viewing unit and programme information
for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
Structural Integrity 1 |
| Unit code |
MENGM0030 |
| Credit points |
10 |
| Level of study |
M/7
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Coules |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
MENG33112 Failure of Materials
|
| Co-requisites |
None
|
| School/department |
Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Engineering |
Description including Unit Aims
This course aims to expand students’ knowledge of materials failure, to which they have between exposed in their second and third years, so that they can assess the integrity of engineering components. Damage tolerance of components in elastic and elastic-plastic regimes will be examined and experimental and numerical methods to obtain fracture parameters are explained. This unit will prepare the students in ‘hard’ technical skills as well as ‘soft’ skills such as teamwork, self-management and project management. Examples of engineering failures will be discussed from both technical and non-technical viewpoints (i.e. their root cause due to breakdown in communication and misinterpretation of rules). The concept of "fitness for service (FFS)" is introduced and FFS codes in different industries such as oil and gas and nuclear are reviewed.
The aims of this course are to:
- Introduce the concepts of fracture mechanics and structural integrity assessments, in theory and application. Industrial assessment codes such as R6 and BS7910 will be introduced.
- Explain the standard and recent experimental methods through which the fracture parameters are measured. For example measurement of fracture toughness and resistance curves using standards such as ASTM E399 and ASTM 1820 will be introduced.
- Enable students to apply fitness for service codes to industrial cases studies (e.g. Pressure vessels, piping, wind turbines, bridges and aerospace components)
- Give students an appreciation of the role of NDT in ensuring integrity, and how it links to structural integrity assessment.
- Give the students examples of industrial accidents in which the breakdown of team work (e.g. lack of communications) was the main cause.
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- Explain the theoretical background associated with parameters used in structural integrity (such as stress intensity factor and energy release rate)
- Use the associated standards and codes and the results of experiments performed based on them to calculate the parameters to which they have been introduced in learning outcome 1
- Use the standard codes of practice for assessing the structural integrity of components in safety sensitive industries (such as pressure vessels and pipes containing defects)
- Use the parameters introduced in learning outcome 1 and measured in learning outcome 2 to assess the integrity of simple structures using the standard codes of practice from learning outcome 3
Contribute to a task within a team that is using codes of practice to assess simple structures in class.
Teaching Information
Students receive 2 hours of lectures per week for the new material, problem solving and tutorial solutions. Written hand-outs (PowerPoints) are provided to support the lectures. Relevant standards will be available to them as part of course material. The lectures will be delivered by H.Coules and Professor Hadley, Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Structural Integrity, TWI (The Welding Institute). Industrial case studies will be delivered by Professor Hadley with an emphasis on the role of soft skills (e.g. teamwork) employed to carry out all the tasks (technical and managerial) in the case studies.
Assessment Information
2 hour exam (100%)
Reading and References
- Anderson, T.L., Fracture Mechanics: Fundamentals & Applications. (2005), 3rd ed., Taylor & Francis. ISBN-10: 0849316561. ISBN-13: 9780849316562.
- Knott, J.F., Fundamentals of Fracture Mechanics. (1976), 1st ed., Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN-10: 0408705299. ISBN-13: 9780408707893.
- Hertzberg, R.W., Vinci, R.P. & Hertzberg, J.L., Deformation & Fracture Mechanics of Engineering Materials. (2013), 5th ed., Wiley & Sons. ISBN-10: 0470527803. ISBN-13: 9780470527801.
- Dowling, N.E., Mechanical 'Behaviour' of Materials. (2013), 4th ed., Pearson Education. ISBN-10: 0273764551. ISBN-13: 9780273764557.
