Future structure, organization and plans for the SAE FD&E Committee

·        Motivating Projects

Challenging

Whole Jobs

Meaningful

Require Feedback

q       Education and Training

·        Communications

Email/WWW

·        PR

Why should you participate in SAE FD&E?

What line do you sell your manager on SAE FD&E?

·        SAE/ASTM

The comments below, slightly edited, are provided to stimulate thought about the direction that our FD&E committee should take in the near future.

As I see it, one of the big problems with the group is that everyone is ready to listen, but far fewer are ready to speak. I am very aware of this, because I am as guilty as anyone. I come and I listen and learn, but have never done a presentation. My perception is that there is less research being done, so there is less to share. And the research that is being done is being done within small consortia which generally means the results are proprietary and cannot be shared. As far as the former issue (less research), that seems to be a function of tighter budgets and, as someone else mentioned, the perception by upper management that the questions have all been answered.  It must be, if it's in a commercially available code, right?

Personally, I really feel I need the committee. It is my best way to keep abreast of the industry. It is how I know if I'm keeping up, so to speak. However, for my employer to continue to support it, they have to see some benefit to them, not just me. As my boss put it, his interests lie less with getting me from 90% to 95% proficient (his numbers, not mine), and more with getting my coworkers from 20% to 50% proficient. That means training opportunities are always important. It also means that when I do presentations and small investigative projects here for the benefit of my co-workers, I would be allowed to share those with the committee. But those presentations might be too "remedial" to be of use to most of the committee
members.

That's my two cents worth up front. I'm looking forward to the meeting next week.
Michele Wegscheid

Al -- Thanks for keeping me on the FD&E distribution even though it's been quite a while since I've been able to attend these meetings on a regular basis. I sympathize with and relate to most of the comments people have made with regard to restricted travel budgets, conflicting management and business priorities, etc. Most of us simply don't have the flexibility and/or budget anymore to regularly attend a wide variety of unfunded fatigue/fracture technical meetings.

I think Mike Mitchell's offer of integrating many of the traditional FD&E functions into the ASTM E08 meeting structure is a good one (and I personally would support it). Of course, an obvious down-side would be that the traditional FD&E people would no longer be able to independently select meeting sites and times. On the positive side the broad agendas of these big ASTM meetings would give ground vehicle fatigue life prediction and design people a wider range of reasons to justify their participation to their technical managers.

If an integration of E08 and FD&E activities is considered seriously, I personally would favor a blending/adding of FD&E interests into the existing E08 subcommittee/working group structure to promote more active, ongoing interactions between the ground vehicle fatigue/fracture people and the aerospace/power generation/government fatigue and fracture folks who have primarily focused on ASTM E08 (and before that E09 and E24) as their technical forum. I think this kind of blending and challenging of different traditional and emerging approaches to fatigue/fracture/damage analysis would be very healthy for the whole fatigue life prediction and design community. In any case, good luck and let's keep in touch. -- Rich Rice

A lot of interesting and constructive input from many. J. O. Almen (GM Res. Lab.)wanted SAE FD & E to be participating forum, "not ruled by academic people" because "academic people want a publication and
the industry people want something that works". The success will come only when we join academic and industry efforts in a productive and streamlined manner. We all are busy and now a days have no or little
funds to support projects outside our work. But we all have to pitch in to make the committee a success. ATV project had several leaders over time and it was not streamlined for whatever reason. I think the
organization structure is good but we need to balance material between academia and the industry if possible and more emphasis needs to put on application. That will bring in more interest.

Currently, I see the following automotive industry needs:

1. How do we substitute lighter materials without jeopardizing strength and fatigue?
2. What are the root causes of structural degradation over time and how do we handle elastomer fatigue?
3. How can we increase quality of our fatigue analysis? Vendors have been pushing their products as "black boxes" to the managements and to the new users. They claim many things but upon using people are finding many issues. That is not helping the industry. Perhaps, they should explain their methods etc. in this forum.
4. More and more polymers are substituting metals. How do we assess their durability properly?
5. There are a lot of questions on the fatigue of mig and laser welds in different materials in context of complex automotive structures.
6. A fatigue design guide document from the committee will certainly be helpful and will bring much required visibility.

> Regards,
> Hari N. Agrawal

Received: from hawaiian.net (ns.hawaiian.net [209.213.37.10])

Please let the group know that there is interest in the world, but FDE  needs to change to be relevant. ...etc...
#2 Education is the thing, a uniform design / test philosophy needs to emerge from the committee.
#3 You need to promote the hell out of what you will become, no more passive stuff....etc

Charles Stanton
Email: Durability(at)hawaiian.net
=========================================================================
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2002 07:57:06 EDT Subject: Fwd: FD&E
To: rchernen(at)ford.com, aconle(at)ford.com John

... Some how you need to figure out what the customer base needs and wants.
...
We reinvented SEM in Detroit about 10 years ago when the meetings had dwindled to less than 5 participants down from 50 or more in the 1970's. We dropped the dinner meetings, put out free sandwiches and added tours along with the informational meeting. We started getting 20-30 to turn out. Sometimes 60 would show up. I've been gone for three years now and have no idea if it still works. But FD&E needs to constantly reinvent itself - if you intend to remain viable.

After all, GM is building entirely different vehicles compared to when we first started there. Maybe you should be going to the industry leaders and ask them "What do you need most?" and see what you get? It is not the way  we went years ago when FD&E was new, but what the heck, it is now mature with commercial software available that takes the worry out of being accurate. Now it seems to me that you need understanding how to link it all together, i.e. the ATV project. Good old GM will fail to participate
and Ford is confused and DCX is being run from Germany with the USA groups all have a very bad case of Not Invented Here syndrome.

If you can not be relevant to the current users, than maybe it time to take it off of life support and let it die.

Here is what I'd do:

* I'd be putting out a web site where questions can be asked of us.
* A monthly newsletter pushed out via email to users.
* Poll the T1 management as to their needs.

Now do understand that GM & DCX & Ford management does believe they have
the problem in hand, but we old users know that the Emperor Has No Clothes.

You should be able to find enough users to support a scaled down FD&E version anyway.

Best of Luck
Charlie
Email: Durability(at)hawaiian.net
(808) 965-0474

#===========================================================================

---
From: jay
Subject: SAE FD&E Planning Mtg
To: jmhakala(at)aol.com
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 13:52:04 -0400
...etc...
My areas of greatest interest are: r

relating "old" Juvinall/Shigley fatigue strength data (and its
conservatism) to new strain-life data, typically expressed as median rank data,
tying FEA to constant amplitude fatigue, and then,
tying FEA to cumulative damage,
correlation methods/processes relating stress analysis and fatigue
testing.

In my current assignment, I have very limited time available to actively pursue these interests. They will, however, become very important to our division over the next 5 years, as we move to a duty cycle based fatigue damage design philosophy (my prediction) ...
#===========================================================================

To: Al Conle <conle(at)fmsrlh.srl.ford.com>
From: "Michael R Mitchell" <mrmitche(at)wlgore.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 11:06:26 -0700
Subject: Offer still stands! [Virus checked]

Al,

....etc...
My offer still stands -- we would make accommodations within the ASTM E 08 for the whole FD&E group, you could keep your name if you want (minus the SAE, of course :o) ) and form two subcommittees; one for the fatigue effort and one for the surface enhancement people. There would be no intervention
into your doings and we would hope that there would be mutually beneficial interaction. My personal hope is that this would occur because I would certainly hate to see the FD&E disbanded --- there have been too many wonderful contributions to the application of fatigue of materials and structures from this great group of people to have it fall by the wayside!
If you want, we could discuss additional details -- phone #928-864-3719

Mitch :o)

ps: you might notice that ASTM and ESIS have a partnership! The European Structural Integrity Society is our counterpart in the EU and the partnership has been very beneficial in bringing the European "thinking"
and technology into the ASTM efforts to go International. SAE had "hoped" to go "International" but from what I've observed, have failed to do so effectively. Just recently, on a trip to Sao Paulo , Brasil with Topper and Landgraf for an SAE Fadigua 2001, the guys in SAE Brasil didn't even know about the FD&E efforts until we told them about your group. So, having affiliation with SAE seems somewhat nonproductive for dissemination of information on fatigue.
#=========================================================================

From: "Haeg, Steven" <Steven.Haeg(at)mts.com>
To: jmhakala(at)aol.com, "Chernenkoff, Russ (R.A.)" <rchernen(at)ford.com>
Cc: "Leser, Christoph" <Christoph.Leser(at)mts.com>, Al Conle <conle(at)fmsrlh.srl.ford.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 11:35:43 -0500

Sorry this is late, I have been traveling in Europe.

I will not be able to attend the planning meeting in either Oct. or Nov.

MTS travel policy at this point is "no travel that does not directly impact a customer or job". It looks like this policy will remain in place for at least another year. Our biggest worldwide business base (the automotive industry) is currently in a 'freeze all capitol and wait to see what happens' mode. That means that MTS has very little potential for major new orders in the Vehicle Dynamics area. Travel and other non-essential expenditures are all reduced or cut completely until further notice. The company is attempting to only cut critical staff as a last resort, so many other expenses must be reduced to maintain jobs (salary has been frozen).

I don't see this changing for several years even if the auto industry picks up. It always takes awhile for budgets to loosen again after a few bad years in a market, especially considering that major systems take over a year to deliver and install (and get paid for).

I think that sums up MTS's involvement (or lack thereof) for some time to come.

Regarding the specific questions (my personal responses are):
1) Renew the vitality: Some interesting and relevant projects would help. Many of the companies think that the fatigue analysis problems are history now that it can all be done by computer (just run MSC!).

Possible new subjects might include:
a) FEA confirmation for fatigue analysis (some work was done on this
a few years back)
b) Further work on weld fatigue (we started to get into this further
in the component test group but it didn't take off). I know that some work
has been done on this in the past.
c) More work with cast metals. Some work (particularly cast
aluminums) has been done by this group in the past. What about cast irons
and cast steels? We introduced this several years ago and got some interest
but those of us who originally championed it got busy on other projects and
it languished.
d) Publish the fatigue properties handbook. This will give visibility to the group and show value (in a form that companies can use) for the work done.

2) Improve work of committee:
a) Get some interesting projects (in a healthy economy) and interested people will support and participate.
b) We also need to somehow educate the business community on how much remains to be done, and how inaccurate current fatigue life prediction methods really are (in spite of them having been committed to software with the corresponding IMPLICATION that it is all proven, solid technology that can now be successfully utilized by drafters running FEA). This may be one of the biggest single issues, particularly when we consider that most engineering companies these days are managed by professional Business,
Finance, and Accounting people, not the engineers that first developed the company and understood the limitations of the technology (and could see through the marketing hype).

c) PR PR PR. The committee does not have the visibility that it once enjoyed.

3) Beneficial to my company:
a) Work with virtual models for fatigue based analysis is a good subject, and the ATV project is a good one, but we need better publicity and broader participation (which would likely come with better publicity).
b) FEA accuracy/considerations for fatigue analysis.
c) Establish root science behind fatigue. We are currently curve fitting only. We don't know the actual physics (at the material level) behind accumulated fatigue damage. This is still a huge limitation.
d) Modeling issues for FEA and fatigue (filets, transitions, etc.), meshing considerations, linear vs non-linear elements, etc. might be useful.
f) Using FEA to predict a rotating principal stress and assess
damage accordingly.

4) Other suggestions: Don't give up the ship after a few tense years. We need to maintain communications and contact but may have to limit expenditures for a few years while the economy recovers. I seem to recall
going through similar problems in the mid 70's, yet somehow we recovered.

This also sets back my hope to get the SAE/U of Iowa Fatigue Design Short Course going again. We have to at least wait until people in the automotive industry are traveling again before it is worthwhile to invest in another mailing, prep costs, etc. to see if it has a chance to get going after the hiatus we are now in. I was hoping to approach a couple of the major supporting companies (that had sent many students in the past) for a small deposit for seed money. I think that would be fruitless at this time.

I suspect we are not the only one's in this situation.

Maybe the SAE FD&E needs to move to a 'dormant' mode, with emails and other communications continuing but formal meetings curtailed until the economy picks up again????

Steven Haeg, P.E.
Principal Staff Design Engineer
MTS Systems Corporation

#=============================================================

Al and John:
... Good luck to you in coming up with good solutions. I do hope we continue the committee for many years despite the difficulty of getting people to come and participate. We lost the short courrse to changing company thoughts on employee participation in non-direct productivity.
Ralph Stephens

#====================================================================

I have appreciated the group's interest in hearing about my work. I have learned some things that should be useful to a rubber component supplier (examples - how to think about real-world loading cenarios/histories, needs of OEM engineers). I have made some valuable contacts in the fatigue world.
My sense is that the FD&E committee has had an unusually strong sense of community for a technical society of its type, which I view as one of its strengths. I would like to keep in touch with the group for these reasons.


I think the group is suffering from competition for people's travel time/money with the commercial fatigue software vendors, who are now aggressively marketing their training services and analysis tools. It might
help if vendors could be persuaded to somehow hold their events/training in conjunction with FD&E meetings?

Perhaps management and newer engineers in industry do not have an adequate understanding of the value of this kind of forum. Maybe the group could invite some talks from industry executives to provide broader perspectives (and to give input on how the group might provide value to industry). Training events would be of obvious benefit to newer engineers. OEM companies may be in a position to promote to their suppliers the benefits of participating in FD&E.

With Best Regards,
Will Mars

#====================================================================

Regarding the attendance problem, from Ford we usually drive, thus even in an economic downturn we can usually get support for the trip. If we were required to fly we would not be able to come, even in "good"
$ climates.

My feeling is that FD&E suffers from some lethargy. People attend, listen to talks, but not a lot is going on. Recently the ATV has attracted attention, but it too now is slowing down a bit in the activity of those interested. This may change just as quickly however if some topic stimulates this group, and I think we should give it another chance before giving up on further work.  A lot of good work has been done on the ATV and one objective we have is to create a summary book/web document of all that has
occured so that others can more easily build onto it. The work so far would make for an excellent case study or guide book for virtual prototyping; a topic that is of interest to many corporations. The problem is that doing the work is much harder for us "fatigue folks" than the previous FD&E projects. Probably 4x as hard as working on the biaxial shaft, and perhaps 10x as hard as the Keyhole tests and theory. Hard or not it is worth getting done. We should make a list of the missing items, break them down into manageable pieces and finish the job properly.

The other divisions:

Life Prediction Division: many of us now use commercial codes to perform life predictions. Thus there is less interest in improving the theory. "let Somat or NCode or Fedem or MCS or LMS etc deal with it." I have some personal views on this: specifically that this will stifle research and innovation too, an undesirable event, because most of the codes still cannot predict life within a factor of 10, but
the answers now come out in nice pretty color plots so we can live with the commercial results. My guess is that we could probably let the Life Pred. Div. go dormant for  awhile until a future need arises, or when a few dedicated souls feel strongly enough about some topic to study it  and revive the division.

Component Test: We don't seem to have a lot of interesting components that people want to test at the moment. I think that this would be easy to fix, however; we could do a material or process subsitution (shot peening?) on an ATV suspension arm. We could try some aluminum welds. Laser welds? Bolts?
What we need for each of these is a plan/list of  items that need to be done, and when the list is presented
some volunteers to help do the test. We should all be capable of helping in "easier" testing like this.
If we cannot get anyone to volunteer for testing some  components we should let this div. go dormant.

Surface Enhancement Div: I think this group is doing fine but could probably use some interaction with the "fatigue test" section of FD&E. Testing a shot peened component would  be ideal. Shot peened weld? Lets pick something.

Road Load Data Div.: Road load collection/analysis are a highly computer and software intensive field these days. It has been difficult for FD&E members to offer much to increase the state of the art. Generally we buy something to collect "road loads" and accept the results. With only a few $/Gbyte for a disk the older summarization problems have gone away. Its is easy now to just collect everything
and let the standard programs handle the summary. Unless there are some objectives here that we can contribute to, FD&E should probably let this division go dormant for awhile.

Materials Properties Div.: Getting good data sets is always of interest to all FD&E members. Getting volunteers to  run the data, with a few exceptions, has been a problem. The difficulty with the previous FD&E data collection is that we were never able to get legal clearance to publish data sets.
Creating good data is fairly cheap. $5K-10K per set. We should all be able to ask our Corps. to fund at least
one data set each per year- and to contribute the data for the public good. We could make this a price of
admission? AISI has gotten a great deal of interest in their 3 year project. We should easily fill the same
needs at FD&E for other materials. I think that this division should be left as is, but that we should all
contribute something to this, ANNUALLY!

My apologies for getting a little wordy here.
Al Conle

#==================================================================

from: Chin-Chan Chu

What I see are missing:

-- lack of participation: People seem to show up because they are expected to; very few seem to be thinking about how we can benefit from pulling our resources together. Rather, the majority seem to
be waiting for orders at best.

benefit to participating members unclear: Minimum travel expense  probably would not be an issue if the members can bring back progress, fruitful thoughts, and an idea of better processes.
-- productive organization: The divisions, probably a good idea during active multiaxial-fatigue-years, have almost become dividing forces. To work properly in this structure, we definitely need focus. ATV
was a good one; but how the divisions can work together, or challenge each other's capability to achieve the final digitized process was not well planned.

Based on the above crude observations/thoughts, what I see are needed:

-- a Project/Goal: A couple of ideas I have are

a) Use of current fatigue method for reverse engineering: Establish procedures to proactively suggest design changes (in material, geometry, and manufacturing processes), rather than wait for new designs and
perform another durability analysis).
b) Characterize (and thus database) not only fatigue properties  of base materials, but also items of significant impact on fatigue;  for example, joining methods, stress history characteristics such
as multiaxiality, mean stress/overload.

-- buy-ins of the participants and their employers

-- a re-org: forget about the divisions right now. only break into divisions later when we see specific tasks, which requires little input from the other divisions, forming.

#=======================================================================

I agree with much of what has been said and only have a few things
to offer.

1) A critical component is having a goal (or goals) that *everyone* can contribute to. One of the problems with the ATV project was that some individuals felt that they had little to offer the project. A few tried starting unrelated and secondary side projects but these did not go far or garner much support. Should there be a mechanism for starting these "task forces" from the executive committee level so that they receive some minimum buy-in and support? -- this is not to suggest that individuals in ones and twos can't do side projects on their own.
As mentioned by others in this forum, it is very important to align our goals with the needs of our industries so that we can justify the time we spend working on these projects.

2) Should there be a further "price" for attendance ... namely participation? FD&E is nominally a working group, but it seems lately we all get together to watch just a very few individuals work.
Perhaps there is a method by which we could extort (not a good word but the only which comes to mind) participation from the peanut gallery? Maybe we could set a limit of two meetings without contributing something, however small. Sure it might chase off some people, but it might at least re-invigorate debate. For starters, how about $75 for attendees and $20 for participants.

3) I have been troubled by the increase in the number of presentations which are primarily to sell some product, be it software or hardware. I would dearly like to get the presentations back on topic -- perhaps we
could designate a certain percentage of presentations that would have to be on current or proposed FD&E projects (ATV, etc.), and then leave say 1/3 or less for non-FD&E business. Further, let's not get  presentations on the schedule just to fill a time-slot. I think that this would go a long way towards bringing our focus back onto our projects.

4) (Lifted from a conversation with Conle & Fatemi): Why not keep the meetings centralized so that we can maximize the participation of those who can't afford to come otherwise. We don't need to tie it to any
particular member's workplace. For instance, how about Grand Rapids at some inexpensive motel. We don't need a plant tour ... although they are fun.
John Bonnen

#=============================================================================

A planning meeting is certainly needed. Maybe we should consider revamping  the structure of FD&E. Eliminate the divisions and start working as a whole.  The divisional structure seems to have fragmented the committee over the  past several years. We also need to find an area of activity where most 
everyone is interested. I think most are interested in reducing vehicle weight and improving fuel economy.
One possible area to consider is material substitution i.e. design, manufacture and test an aluminum (welded tube or cast) control arm for the  ATV. How light could we get it and still have it survive. Go out on the edge.
The shot peening group should be involved to insure durability. Other materials include magnesium and plastic composites. I haven't thought this  out completely but it's a start and I think we could get everyone involved.

We could meet at a more central location like South Bend , IN or the Chicago   area.

Russ Chernenkoff

#==========================================================================
Hello Russ. The only reason I was not planning to go is remotness of Fargo   and travel expenses to fly my students over. Over the past 24 years I have  been attending these meetings myself, and over the last 15 years with my  students. I have always been happy with what I have learned from technical  exchanges at the meeting. I have not noticed a significant drop in attendance  or participation in recent years, compared to my early days, but I don't have  quantitative data like you may have. Here are my thoughts/suggestions for  future meetings:

1. Do not choose a remote site (unless it is Palo Alto or Seattle !) for future meetings. People like Alan who are in remote areas can still host/organize the meeting, but they can do it in a better suited location,
such as in Detroit area.

2. Pick a good topic of interest to many people for the Tech Session and have  all presentations of the Tech Session related to that topic. This can be done  at about the same time the meeting location is decided, so that there is  enough time for organizing a good Tech Session. We could perhaps also invite  a well known keynote speaker on that topic, similar to what ASTM sometimes  does.

3. Carefully choose a common interest AND challenging theme/topic of research  with a good/very interested leader, in which many members are  interested/willing to participate, rather than our current small somewhat  unrelated projects with small participation. For example the previous  successful ones I remember were the SAE Keyhole round robin program and the  multiaxial fatigue program. The ATV project I think lacked good leadership,  even though it enjoyed a lot of enthusiam and participation at the beginning.


I sure hope this meeting was the first and only cancellation, as my students  and I gain a lot from these meetings.

Ali

#==========================================================================
I agree with almost everything that Ali Fatemi stated. 1. Do not choose a remote site for future meetings.
2. Pick a good topic of interest to many people for the Tech Session and have all presentations of the Tech Session related to that topic. Ideally try to tie it to core activities of the committee such as the ATV.
3. Carefully choose a common interest AND challenging theme/topic of research with a good/very interested leader. The ATV could be that topic but it needs stronger leadership. Maybe a professor would be willing if we fund some of his work.
4. Corporations should be further encouraged to donate money. We should form a task group that seeks donations. Corporations will be motivated if:
A) we develop technology that is relevant to their day to day problems
B) we allow companies to "showcase" their technology, I think we have done
this already in the past and it is for this reason that MTS has sponsored
past activities

I would propose to have a 1 day planning meeting of key leaders of the committee to brainstorm how to reinvigorate the committee and then follow through on some of these ideas before we schedule the next official SAE FD&E meeting.

Christoph Leser

Al: The Fatigue short course died not from lack of good teaching, but lack of Michigan people attending. It was suggested we move the course to Chicago for better enrollment. We couldn't since if the course were
to cancel, we could not pay the cancelation fees. Should SAEFDE move to the south suburbs of Chicago ?

You know that lack of enrollment, traval or attending SAEFDE meetings is dictated by industry to eliminate things that don't apply directly (right now) to products. ASTM has the same problem of getting volunters.

Much SAEFDE work recently has been done by only a few people from industry, and more from academia. Most of these academic people have studied with older faculty such as Fuchs, Morrow, Topper, Stephens, and Socie. I wonder if we can keep the younger academics involved? 
ASTM integration does not sound very feasible to me. Also they meet all over the USA , not in the midwest.

The most common questions asked at the short course were: Where can I find material properties, and how can I shorten my tests. These could be good topics to consider.

I think it wise to reduce the splintered effects of our current Division structure as mentioned by others.

Could the HO Fuchs award be of more help?

Good luck next week and hopefully we will keep SAEFDE going for many years.

Ralph Stephens

 
Al -- Thanks for keeping me on the FD&E distribution even though it's been quite a while since I've been able to attend these meetings on a regular basis. I sympathize with and relate to most of the comments people have made with regard to restricted travel budgets, conflicting management and business priorities, etc. Most of us simply don't have the flexibility and/or budget anymore to regularly attend a wide variety of unfunded fatigue/fracture technical meetings.

I think Mike Mitchell's offer of integrating many of the traditional FD&E functions into the ASTM E08 meeting structure is a good one (and I personally would support it). Of course, an obvious down-side would be that  the traditional FD&E people would no longer be able to independently select meeting sites and times. On the positive side the broad agendas of these big ASTM meetings would give ground vehicle fatigue life prediction and design people a wider range of reasons to justify their participation to
their technical managers.

If an integration of E08 and FD&E activities is considered seriously I personally would favor a blending/adding of FD&E interests into the existing E08 subcommittee/working group structure to promote more active, ongoing interactions between the ground vehicle fatigue/fracture people and the aerospace/power generation/government fatigue and fracture folks who have primarily focused on ASTM E08 (and before that E09 and E24) as their technical forum.  I think this kind of blending and challenging of different traditional and emerging approaches to fatigue/fracture/damage analysis would be very healthy for the whole fatigue life prediction and design  community.

In any case, good luck and let's keep in touch. -- Rich Rice

-----Original Message-----

From: Mary J. Wickham [mailto:WICKHAM_MARY_J(at)cat.com]

Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 6:23 PM

To: Jmhakala(at)aol.com

Cc: Leser, Christoph; hedward.lu(at)honeywell.com; Daniel Lingenfelser

Subject: Re: Maps to Honeywell Aircraft Landing Systems (ALS)

John,

Dan Lingenfelser and I just met with some others at Cat to discuss our suggestions for the SAE FD&E Committee. I'll try to give you a few summary points.

Consensus was that the FD&E committee was valuable and should be continued.

Valued areas highlighted were:

- Fatigue Short Course (training) -- this training differentiates the committee. It has the right mix of instructors and is valuable to train people in industry. It is something the committee can point to that is a major accomplishment.

- Networking -- The meetings provide a regular forum for updates. It provides a vehicle to network with other professionals in industry.

We would like to maintain our offer to host the Spring meeting and would suggest trying to use the meeting to revitalize the committee. Our suggested theme would be Virtual Prototyping. With this topic and outside expert speakers, we could use this meeting to gain visibility for the committee.

Mary Wickham

(309) 578-8172

Mary.J.Wickham(at)CAT.com