Hello all,
I've searched the forums and cannot find what I'm looking for so I'll try here.
I do alot of FEA's here and often am unsure about how to determine the safety factor. For example, assume I have a model that is "clean", i.e., critical features are included, the mesh size is appropriate, the solution is converged, boundary conditions are sensible, etc. The maximum VonMises stress (at the fine meshed areas) is about 40,000psi. The material has a 46,000psi yield. Do I calculate the safety factor to be 46/40 = 1.15? Or do I use some nominal value for the stress. I've read in some places that using the max stress to calculate safety factors can be too conservative.
Thanks in advance!
- Chris
Chris C. Mechanical Engineer
SW07x64 SP4.0
Dell 490, Xeon Dual Core, 8GB ram
Nvidia Quadro FX3500
I've searched the forums and cannot find what I'm looking for so I'll try here.
I do alot of FEA's here and often am unsure about how to determine the safety factor. For example, assume I have a model that is "clean", i.e., critical features are included, the mesh size is appropriate, the solution is converged, boundary conditions are sensible, etc. The maximum VonMises stress (at the fine meshed areas) is about 40,000psi. The material has a 46,000psi yield. Do I calculate the safety factor to be 46/40 = 1.15? Or do I use some nominal value for the stress. I've read in some places that using the max stress to calculate safety factors can be too conservative.
Thanks in advance!
- Chris
Chris C. Mechanical Engineer
SW07x64 SP4.0
Dell 490, Xeon Dual Core, 8GB ram
Nvidia Quadro FX3500