Battelle Researcher Perfects Method to Revolutionize Welding Practices

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 13, 2004 -- Battelle researcher Pingsha Dong has developed a method for predicting fatigue life in welded structures that could revolutionize the field and has the potential to save billions of dollars in the aerospace, automotive, bridge construction, shipbuilding, pipeline, and off-shore oil rig industries.

While previous stress concentration calculation methods were highly sensitive to the detail of the computerized model, Pingsha's method, referred to as the Verity(TM) mesh-insensitive structural stress method, proved to be accurate regardless of that detail. And the accuracy far surpasses any existing modeling method, so that fatigue lives of welded structures now can be reliably predicted regardless of the complexity of welded components and modeling details.

Modeling and testing regulations vary from industry to industry, but it's safe to say billions of dollars are spent every year on testing, modeling, and predicting the fatigue life of welded structures. Pingsha's method can eliminate the need for expensive testing and "over-engineering" that is done to compensate for uncertainties in current fatigue design practices in various industries.

"For the past 25 years, experts in the field have been trying to address the adequacies in stress analysis for fatigue design of welded structures so that companies would not have to compensate for poorly correlated test data," says Pingsha. "Eventually, the industry and academia gave up. We did not give up."

Verity(TM) was used to win a recent Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) fatigue design and evaluation committee Weld Challenge against some of the top minds in fatigue life prediction. Recently, one major automotive company began using the method for full-vehicle durability prediction and has seen considerable savings in new-vehicle development cost. Recognizing the enormous impact of Verity(TM) tools in the automotive industry, SAE International awarded Pingsha and his team the prestigious Henry Ford II Distinguished Award for Excellence in Automotive Engineering.

"Other fatigue software vendors claim to have an effective method, but when you look into the details, they're using a lot of subjective 'fudge factors.' Not Pingsha," says Ford's Senior Technical Specialist Dr. Hari Agrawal, a well-known fatigue design expert in the automotive industry.

Battelle is a global leader in science and technology. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, it develops and commercializes technology and manages laboratories for customers. Battelle, with the national labs that it manages or co-manages, oversees 16,000 staff members and conducts $3 billion in annual research and development. Battelle innovations include the development of the office copier machine (Xerox), pioneering work on compact disc technology, medical technology advancements, and fiber optic technologies.

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