MSC.

Fatigue
State-of-the-art software solution for durability analysis

PRODUCT SOLUTIONS
How long will it last? What if it breaks? What should the warranty be? These are critical questions asked by manufacturers. Fatigue is a process that causes premature and even catastrophic failures of in-service products subjected to repeated loads, resulting in costly recalls, damaged reputations, and, in severe cases, loss of life. MSC.Fatigue answers these critical questions and helps manufacturers create quality products that will endure, ensure product safety & customer satisfaction, and reduce costs.

What is MSC.Fatigue?
MSC.Fatigue is an advanced life simulator that allows analysts to easily transform finite element stress and strain results into fatigue life predictions. Fatigue analysis is a natural extension to a stress analysis. In fact, a fatigue analysis is basically a stress analysis that is subjected to repeated loads and that takes into account durability properties of a component or structure. MSC.Fatigue enables analysts to leverage traditional stress analyses with state-of-the-art methodologies for comprehensive durability simulations early in the design cycle. MSC.Fatigue takes stress or strain results from finite element (FE) models, subjects FE load environments to user-defined time variations, and applies cyclic material properties & damage logic to predict service life. MSC.Fatigue leverages the state-of-the-art results visualization capabilities of MSC.Patran to report damage and life predictions

MSC.Fatigue incorporates all three major aspects of fatigue life prediction

Total life: This is the traditional stress-life, or S-N, method which typically does not distinguish between initiating or growing a crack, but rather, predicts the total life to catastrophic failure, or separation into two or more pieces. Crack Initiation: Sophisticated strain-life (-N) modeling provides a method for estimating the life of a designed part before a crack of a specified size develops. This method is also known as the local strain method and is used to model safety critical components. Crack Growth: Linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) is used to predict the progress of a crack through a component to the point where rapid fracture causes ultimate failure. LEFM is generally used for structures that must be damage tolerant. Whether designs are driven by safe life, fail-safe, or damage tolerant criteria, MSC.Fatigue is the choice. By combining state-of-the-art crack initiation and crack growth approaches, it is possible to predict the total life of a design and to understand the relative importance of various fatigue characteristics with regard to the life of a structure.

Key Capabilities
MODELING: MSC.Fatigue provides advanced graphical modeling capabilities for manipulating FE meshes, defining fatigue and fracture parameters, and preparing analytical models for fatigue life prediction. ANALYSIS INTEGRATION: MSC.Fatigue supports FE results from a large range of FE codes such as MSC.Nastran, MSC.Marc, ANSYS and ABAQUS. Analysis types supported include linear static, transient, frequency response, random vibration and residual stresses from nonlinear analyses. MATERIALS DATA: MSC.Fatigue features a comprehensive materials database manager to generate, define, query, compare, tabulate, and graphically view cyclic materials data. The MSC.Fatigue materials database supports monotonic, nominal stress-life (component and material S-N curves), crack initiation, and crack growth data sets. SERVICE LOADS: MSC.Fatigue allows access to realistic, complex loading descriptions as well as experimental and measured data through a comprehensive time history manager. Facilities are available for creating, editing, and manipulating load time histories as well as histograms and PSDs in user-defined fatigue units (miles, hours, laps, etc.) and much more. RESULTS VISUALIZATION: MSC.Fatigue provides a variety of techniques for visualizing damage and life results including graphical contour plots, tabular listings, sensitivity plots, and cycle damage histograms.

REDUCE TESTING COSTS (TIME & MONEY) Fatigue tests are the most costly and time consuming structural acceptance tests performed by manufacturers. A desired and obtainable goal is to reduce the number of tests to one: the final acceptance test. By helping to reduce the number of tests, even by one, the investment in MSC.Fatigue more than pays for itself. OPTIMIZE PRODUCTS FOR FATIGUE LIFE Fatigue testing alone will not address all critical design aspects of a product. In fact, testing alone will rarely result in an optimized product. MSC.Fatigue provides a systematic, analytical approach to product life assessment, facilitating the consideration of product durability upstream in the design-for-manufacturing process. Product design studies using MSC.Fatigue helps engineers evaluate design concepts and changes early in the design cycle before a prototype is ever created. This optimizes product durability, encourages faster time-to-market, and reduces prototyping and testing costs. MINIMIZE OVER-DESIGNS Even products for which fatigue is not a critical issue can benefit from MSC.Fatigue. MSC.Fatigue will provide insight as to the response of such infinite life products with respect to service environments. By identifying when fatigue begins to play a critical role for these products, an engineer can determine adequate factors of safety to achieve a desired service life without wasteful over-designs and unnecessary manufacturing costs. CREATE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Nearly a half century ago the advent of finite element technology provided manufacturers a competitive edge by raising the bar on the costeffectiveness and predictability of complex systems. MSC.Fatigue, with its state-of-the art life simulation technology, extends this competitive edge once again by helping you optimize your product for safety, durability, and reliability. MSC.Fatigue leaves those that take advantage of this technology well ahead of the competition.

Solution for Competitive Advantage

More than just a software product, MSC.Fatigue is a design optimization solution created to help you gain a competitive advantage! The benefits of MSC.Fatigue include: Reduce and eliminate unnecessary and expensive tests Faster time-to-market at a lower cost Gain insight into product response Perform sensitivity studies Minimize over-design Simulate misuse Optimize for fatigue and damage tolerance 3

Training, Support, & Integration Services

The MSC Institute offers the course, Durability Life Assessment Using MSC.Fatigue, on a regular basis. This course provides hands-on experience and raises awareness of fatigue-life predictive methods. This course can be tailored to suit individual needs, and can be given on-site as well as in MSC.Software training facilities located throughout the world. MSC.Software provides the industrys most comprehensive support system with over 50 offices worldwide to provide local and centralized support. Investing in MSC.Software gives you access to extensive client support through comprehensive documentation, direct technical expertise, and customized training classes. MSC.Fatigue is backed by over 300 man-years of combined experience in fatigue analysis. No other company offers the level and quality of fatigue support as MSC.Software. A professional and courteous staff is just a phone call away to assist your needs. MSC.Software also provides commercial integration services to custom design solutions specifically for our customers. MSC.Software solutions involve providing and integrating the right combination of strategies, software, and services to help our customers achieve their competitive advantage.

To find your local MSC.Software office or to learn more about our company and our products, please contact: Corporate: MSC.Software Corporation 2 MacArthur Place Santa Ana, California 92707 USA 1 714 540.8900 Fax: 1 714 784.4056 Information Center: 1 800 642.7437 ext. 2500 (U.S. only) 1 978 453.5310 ext. 2500 (International)
W o rld w i d e W eb - www.mscsoftware.com On- l in e Pu r ch a se s - www.engineer ing-e.com On- l in e Simu latio n - www.simulationcenter.com

Europe: MSC.Software GmbH Am Moosfeld 13 81829 Munich, Germany 49 89 43 19 87 0 Fax: 49 89 43 61 71 6 Asia-Pacific: MSC.Software Japan Ltd. Entsuji-Gadelius Bldg. 2-39, Akasaka 5-chome Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 Japan 81 3 3505 0266 Fax: 81 3 3505 0914
MSC, Marc and Patran are registered trademarks of MSC.Software Corporation. Nastran is a registered trademark of NASA. MSC.Nastran, MSC.Patran, MSC.Marc and MSC.Fatigue are trademarks of MSC.Software Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their registered owners. All specifications are subject to change without notice.
2001 MSC.Software Corporation

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Engineers, designers, and analysts in aerospace, automotive, and many growth industries worldwide depend on MSC.Software to help bring their products to market faster, reduce costs and increase product quality and performance.