Institution news
Q: Please can you briefly explain your role and involvement with assets that require advanced fracture mechanics.
I am an academic so expectedly, I work at the lower end of TRL. Some of the projects I run are blue sky and funded by the government to look into future trends in fracture mechanics. For example I am looking into expanding the fundamental science in which the integrity assessments are based for future advanced nuclear system. I sit on BS7910 fracture panel
Concurrently, some of the projects I work on are supported by industry when they need answers in much faster timescales. The traditional structural integrity methods are inherently over-conservative and in the current climate of financial stringency, can deem safe assets unsafe and decommission them prematurely. That is when advanced fracture mechanics comes into play where the cost of running an advanced analysis overweighs the cost associated with decommission an asset. This is particularly important in the safety-critical industries like nuclear, oil and gas, petrochemical, and aerospace.
Q: What is the number one challenge for those using or benefitting from technologies related to fracture mechanics in today’s current market?
Lack of sufficient number of experts is the number one challenge. For a while we stopped training subject experts and now there is a real shortage with the older generation reaching retirement and not enough new experts coming to the industry. I cannot believe the number of phone calls I get from industry asking for PhD graduates in the field.
Q: What is the most exciting development in this field at the moment, either within your company or in the industry in general?
Use of technology is making our lives a lot easier. When I was a student and was using finite element modelling, I had to mesh each sample one by one which was very time consuming so probabilistic approaches which require a large number of simulations were not feasible. Today, we can write codes that automatically generate thousands of models with various crack lengths, sample thicknesses,… run them concurrently on a supercomputer and get distributions out in a timely fashion. This has opened many doors.
Q: Where do you see the future of fracture mechanics assessments and predictions in the next 5 years?
Probabilistic assessments are gaining traction. The time for accepting the lower bound as an inevitable safety case and over-design and assess assets over-conservatively is gone. We will move towards more intelligent risk analysis combined with probabilistic analysis is coming and I expect to start seeing them in industries they are not used now. The Oil and Gas industry has been using them for some time and it will be becoming more mainstream in other fields.
Q: What other topics are you looking forward to hearing about and discussing at the upcoming seminar?
The future of our assessment codes is something I am very keen to discuss.
Q: Why do you feel it is important for all professionals to join this seminar?
Continuous Personal Development and keeping up with the state-of-the-art is extremely important for any professional. It is not every day that you can find all the leaders of the field in one room and can discuss with them your organisation’s issues and network with them. I wouldn’t miss this chance!
Improving Safety with Advanced Fracture Mechanics takes place on 15 May 2019 at One Birdcage Walk, London.
The Improving Safety with Advanced Fracture Mechanics seminar will address the challenges around the industry adoption of new testing methods, bridging the gap between academic innovation and industry application.
Mahmoud will be joined by speakers including:
- University of Cambridge
- EDF Energy Nuclear Generation
- EASL
- TWI
- University of Manchester
- DNV GL
- Wood Group.
For further information and to book your place, please visit the event website www.imeche.org/fracturemechanics.