Calculate Utilization

The main objective of this function is to calculate the utilization factor by first determining the minimum and maximum stresses for each location.

The following process is carried out for each range/loadcase and for each 1D element at each location.
  1. Using the min and max stress values, determine the stress amplitude and the fatigue stress limit, as per the selected specification.
  2. Find the utilization ratio (UR), where Utilization Ratio = Stress Amplitude / Fatigue Stress at each location and for each stress component (X, Y and XY).
  3. Using the utilization components X, Y and XY, determine the resultant utilization.
  4. Decide the status of weld lines based on the utilization values. If the utilization ratio for any weld line crosses 1.0, then that weld line is marked as failed.

Utilization Results

Utilization results are written into an H3D file. Utilization for all the three components / directions and also for all the locations is made available in this file.

Along with the H3D results file, another text file is also written out with the details of the top N 1D elements.