Page 179 - MY STORY

“what in hell makes an M&P grunt think that they’re

capable of calculating stress, understanding fracture
mechanics, and telling us how to design anything!!!” I
spent a week going through the intricacies of fracture

mechanics analytical methods with the strength folk (Don
F) with the result that we gained a new respect for each
other. The only guy I could not convince was the

Strength department head. He was too set in his ways to
figure it out, but the strength folk responsible for the
OMS pressure vessels did it right. We won the program.

FAULTY ALGORITHMS

Our M&P folk, in conjunction with the Strength folk, won
a program from NASA-Langley to examine the combined

effects of creep and cyclic stress on the high-temperature
behavior of nickel and cobalt base alloys. One of the
reasons for the win was our proposing a new analytical

algorithm using linear-regression-analysis to predict the
behavior of these alloys under combined creep and cyclic
stress conditions. The analytical algorithms were to be

validated by comparison to actual experimental data
conducted in our labs at the very high temperatures.