Methods of service durability assessment

Service durability of a product can be achieved only by careful design taking into account the different aspects of the required mission profile with regard to component strength. In order to include all effects on component strength (like material, manufacturing, local geometry, scattering) on one hand, and to meet competition requirements on the other hand, the design engineer has to apply efficient methods for guarantying service durability. A brief overview over these methods are presented. Today's developments are focusing on the reduction of time-to-market periods. This fact is putting more emphasis on numerical methods (simulations of dynamic system behaviour, of component properties and local stresses) in order to reduce experimental procedures of optimizing and proof-out.