Short-term Fatigue Damage Research Articles

Statistical Uncertainty Analysis in Time-Domain Fatigue Assessment of Steel Risers

This paper addresses the statistical uncertainty in long-term fatigue damage in offshore structures due to the short-term simulation length used in time domain analysis of stresses. The paper focuses on steel risers applications. A new simulation-based estimator for the variance of the short-term fatigue damage is presented. The proposed estimator is based on a variation of the original nonparametric bootstrap. It works with blocks of data instead of discrete values, in order to better account for the autocorrelation of the stress cycles in the stress time series. This versatile estimator can be applied in time-domain fatigue analyses to assess the variance of the fatigue damage using a single stress time series and does not require any previous assumptions on the stochastic stress process.

Short-term fatigue analysis for tower base of a spar-type wind turbine under stochastic wind-wave loads

Due to integrated stochastic wind and wave loads, the supporting platform of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) has to bear six Degrees of Freedom (DOF) motion, which makes the random cyclic loads acting on the structural components, for instance the tower base, more complicated than those on bottom-fixed or land-based wind turbines. These cyclic loads may cause unexpected fatigue damages on a FOWT. This paper presents a study on short-term fatigue damage at the tower base of a 5 MW FOWT with a spar-type platform. Fully coupled time-domain simulations code FAST is used and realistic environment conditions are considered to obtain the loads and structural stresses at the tower base. Then the cumulative fatigue damage is calculated based on rainflow counting method and Miner's rule. Moreover, the effects of the simulation length, the wind-wave misalignment, the wind-only condition and the wave-only condition on the fatigue damage are investigated. It is found that the wind and wave induced loads affect the tower base's axial stress separately and in a decoupled way, and the wave-induced fatigue damage is greater than that induced by the wind loads. Under the environment conditions with rated wind speed, the tower base experiences the highest fatigue damage when the joint probability of the wind and wave is included in the calculation. Moreover, it is also found that 1 h simulation length is sufficient to give an appropriate fatigue damage estimated life for FOWT.

Wind-Wave Misalignment Effects on Floating Wind Turbines: Motions and Tower Load Effects

The dynamic responses of a spar, tension leg platform (TLP), and two semisubmersible floating wind turbines (FWTs) in selected misaligned wind and wave conditions are investigated using numerical simulation with an aero-hydro-servo-elastic computational tool. For a range of representative operational conditions, the platform motions and short-term fatigue damage in the tower base and tower top are examined. Although some misalignment conditions result in increased motions both parallel and perpendicular to the wave direction, aligned wind and waves cause the largest short-term tower base fatigue damage for the studied platforms and conditions. Several factors which lead to larger fatigue damage for certain platforms in particular conditions are identified, such as tower resonance due to the 3p blade passing frequency in low wind speeds; surge and pitch motions, particularly in the wave frequency range; and the variations in first-order hydrodynamic loads due to wave direction. A semisubmersible platform with large displacement suffers the least damage at the base of the tower.

Ringing loads on tension leg platform wind turbines

The present work identifies realistic wave (and associated wind) conditions which could induce ringing responses in tension leg platform wind turbines (TLPWTs). The simulation results show the importance of ringing forces, the effects of turbine operation, and the sensitivity of the ringing response to platform stiffness and viscous damping. To model the ringing loads, the second order quadratic transfer function and a bandwidth-limited summation formulation for the third order wave forces were implemented. The chosen formulation avoids the spectrum cut-off dependency and the low-frequency components of a direct implementation of the irregular wave Faltinsen, Newman, Vinje (FNV) formula. Depending on the natural period and damping, the difference between a direct implementation and this formulation was 5–25%. Ringing-type responses were simulated for 50-year wind and wave conditions. Various hydrodynamic models were used to isolate physics in different approaches. For platforms with 14–18m diameters, ringing loads resulted in larger extreme loads and increased short-term fatigue damage in the tendons and tower. Ringing effects were particularly severe for platforms with a pitch/bending natural period of 3–4s. The viscous damping coefficient had a negligible influence on the ringing response, while aerodynamic damping could be important in damping the oscillations following the initial maximum.

Combined effects of fatigue and eccentric damage on muscle power

Many physical activities can induce both transient and long-lasting muscle dysfunction. The separate and interactive effects of short-term fatigue and long-lasting contraction-induced damage were evaluated in an in vitro mouse soleus preparation (35 degrees C) using the work loop technique. Repetitive fatiguing work loops reduced positive work (work produced by the muscle), increased negative work (work required to reextend the muscle), and reduced cyclical power (net work/time) immediately after treatment. These changes were readily reversible. The fatigue treatment had no long-term effects on optimal muscle length (L(o)) and isometric force (P(o)). High strain lengthening work loops, where the muscle contracted eccentrically, resulted in both immediate and long-lasting positive work, power, and P(o) deficits as well as a shift in L(o) to longer lengths. When the treatments were combined, i.e., fatigued muscles subjected to eccentric activity, the immediate power deficit exceeded the sum of the power deficits noted for the other two treatments. Much of this effect was due to an exaggerated rise in negative work. However, in the long term, power and P(o) deficits and the shift in L(o) were reduced compared with the damage-only treatment. These results show that 1) the immediate effects of combined fatigue and damage on cyclical power are synergistic, in large part because of a reduced ability of the muscle to relax; and 2) fatigued muscles are less susceptible to long-term contraction-induced dysfunction. Fatigue may protect against long-term damage by reducing the probability that sarcomeres are lengthened beyond myofilament overlap.

Nondestructive and Analytical Creep and Fatigue Life Evaluation of INCONEL718 in the LE-7 Rocket Engine Main Injector.

Nondestructive creep and fatigue life evaluation technology was investigated for INCONEL718 in the LE-7 rocket engine. Metallurgical microstructural change is not considered to be a criterion for life prediction because it is very small in high-stress and short-term creep and fatigue damage processes such as in the LE-7 engine. Crack length observation on the metal surface is the most effective method to estimate damage rate. Correlation of maximum crack length and life consumption rate was shown for the parent metal and welded joint based on the interrupted creep and fatigue test specimen. Furthermore, the analytical life prediction method by means of structural strength analysis and reference material data was checked using notched specimen creep and fatigue test data.

A study on variable amplitude load fatigue and an expert system for fatigue assessment of highway steel bridges. (Dissertation): Melhem, H.G.Diss. Abstr. Int. Sept. 1990 51, (3), 373 pp

This study investigates the effect of variability and uncertainty of wind and wave conditions on the short-term fatigue damage of a 10-MW floating wind turbine drivetrain. Global dynamic responses of a semi-submersible wind turbine are calculated by aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulations in various environmental conditions. Then, rotor and generator loads, as well as nacelle motions from the global analysis are provided to a drivetrain model to investigate its dynamics. One-hour fatigue damage of the drivetrain bearings is calculated based on the bearing loads and speeds, and the effect of uncertainties related to wind and waves is assessed. The results indicate that the variations of mean wind speed, turbulence intensity and wind shear have great effects on the studied drivetrain. The effect of uncertainties of irregular waves on the drivetrain fatigue damage is small. Five wind and wave random samples are sufficient for dynamic analysis of the drivetrain to achieve accurate results at a reasonable computational cost. Among the drivetrain components, the main bearings are generally most sensitive to the investigated environmental variables. Finally, this study discusses the variation of environmental variables in terms of their relative importance for drivetrain analysis. The results provide a basis for establishing improved design standards and engineering practice for design and analysis of floating wind turbine drivetrains.

Creep life predictions for structures subject to variable loading

Previous work which established upper and lower bounds on the creep life of steadily loaded structures is extended to cater for load and temperature variations in non-homogeneous structures. The investigation is limited to the range where short term plasticity and fatigue damage can be ignored. For proportional loading, the upper bound which is based on limit analysis, is similar in form to that for constant loading. In the more general case, the upper bound is less stringent and is based on the mean load and temperature distribution over the lifetime. A lower bound on life is taken as the time for the first part of the structure to fail.The bounds are applied to three simple structures. For proportional loading the upper bound predicts the lifetime with the same accuracy as for constant loading except for extreme load variations. The presence of a temperature distribution alters the accuracy of the upper bound prediction but in most cases the change is small. In contrast, the lower bound is very sensitive to the temperature gradient.The authors use these results to develop approximate techniques for estimating the creep life of components subjected to variable loads and temperature distributions. Simplified design procedures based on the upper bound are examined and suitable amendments are proposed.