“The addition of incremental theory of plasticity in StressCheck has greatly improved our ability to accurately predict the fatigue life of joints with interference fit fasteners and cold worked holes. This ability is especially important, not only in support of maintaining aging aircraft but also in analyzing some of the new cold working techniques that have been introduced in recent years.
Prior to this implementation, analysts often relied on closed-form approximations or simple factors that were often overly conservative and sometimes even unconservative when used in life prediction. Now, not only can we more accurately predict residual stresses in these complex structural joints, but we can also do so in a timely manner given the modeling and analysis efficiency that exists with a p-version FEA code such as StressCheck.”