Life and reliability of rotating disks

In aerospace applications, an engineer must be especially cognizant of size and weight constraints which affect design decisions. Although designing at or below the material fatigue limit may be desirable in most industrial applications, in aerospace application it is almost mandatory to design certain components for a finite life at an acceptable probability of survival. Zaretsky outlined such a methodology based in part on the work of W. Weibull (1939, 1951) and G. Lundberg and A. Palmgren (1947a, 1947b, 1952). It is the objective of this work to apply the method of Zaretsky (1987) to statistically predict the life of a generic solid disk with and without bolt holes; determine the effect of disk design variables, thermal loads, and speed on relative life; and develop a generalized equation for determining disk life by incorporating only these variables.