Primer for the calculation of characteristic loads and performance envelopes

PURPOSE
The purpose of this dataset is to introduce the concepts of ‘characteristic loads’ and ‘performance envelopes’.

BACKGROUND
In engineering, it is often necessary to examine during design a large combination of loading scenarios and potential modes of failure to ensure a safe and reliable product. ‘Characteristic loads’ are defined as a set of linearly independent loads acting on a product, identified using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). Characteristic loads may be used to reconstruct approximations of the loading scenarios of interest. ‘Performance envelopes’ are created within the characteristic load space and define the load bearing capacity of a structure.

This dataset considers a simple mechanical engineering problem (a compound bar assembly) to demonstrate the calculation and use of both ‘characteristic loads’ and ‘performance envelopes’.

REFERENCE MATERIAL
This dataset is referenced in the papers:
• Efficient methods to build structural performance envelopes in characteristic load space (in draft)
• Load case and constraint down-selection for structural optimisation – applying the concepts of characteristic loads and performance envelopes (in draft)
• Calculating critical Reserve Factor sensitivities using performance envelopes (in draft)

This dataset is also referenced in the thesis:
• Performance envelopes for preliminary sizing of aircraft structures, Doctoral Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, Sriharsha Sheshanarayana, 2020

DATASET CONTENT
This dataset contains:
• A primer document which explains calculation methods to obtain characteristic loads and performance envelopes.
• Three Jupyter Notebooks which contain code and data to enable the reproduction of the results within the primer.