PLASTIC IMPACT FAILURE

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Do you know how shock and impact loads affect your product?

Shock and impact loads are among the most challenging and counter-intuitive forces that a product designer must account for. In most cases, because of the difficulty of designing for these events, shock and impact are simply not considered during the design phase of a new product. The first understanding of this load case on product performance and reliability is usually gained after production prototypes are available for testing. Of course, if a problem is discovered, it is too late to develop a solution without significant impact on the project schedule.

We Deliver Answers ... and Time to Develop Solutions

Stress Engineering Services has developed a broad range of analytical, computational, and experimental testing and instrumentation skills specifically focused on predicting how shock loads affect products. In upstream situations before the product or package exists, we use analytical and computational modeling to predict the effects of component/component interactions. This approach is used to anticipate possible problems and formulate and evaluate practical solutions while still in the design phase.

High-Speed Instrumentation & Data Collection

For downstream situations where production-quality prototypes or finished product is available, Stress Engineering enhances shock testing via high-speed instrumentation and data collection. By instrumenting individual components in the device, they become transducers themselves, providing important information about the forces and movements during the event. This information is used to assess performance of a device, provide a foundation for development of solutions, and quantify the effectiveness of possible modifications.

Solutions to shock/impact problems always involve consideration of design features and materials for absorption and/or viscous dissipation of kinetic energy to shield critical components of the product. In complex assemblies, the process of identifying energy absorption and loading pathways is non-intuitive.

Localization is also important. Small, relatively high-stress zones surrounded by unstressed bulk are the most likely locations for environmental stress cracking (ESC) in a complex component.

In this regard, we bring vast experience and a variety of analytical and testing tools to enable a priority assessment of products under shock/impact conditions.