The History of Structural Fatigue Testing at Fishermans Bend Australia

Abstract

This report presents the history of fatigue research at DSTO's Fishermans Bend Australia facility from the early days in the 1940s when Mr. H.A. Wills, Head of the then Structures Division, foresaw with remarkable insight the impending danger of fatigue in aircraft structures. He presented an historic paper at the Second International Aeronautical Conference in 1949 and instituted a comprehensive programme of research on the fatigue of materials and structures which was vindicated within the next decade as fatigue failures began to plague first civil and then military aircraft fleets world wide. DSTO is still a leading world authority on the fatigue of aircraft structures, as many of these research programmes have won international recognition and as fatigue investigations expeditiously undertaken for the RAAF (and at times Civil authorities) have supplied valuable information to the aircraft manufacturers, operators and researchers.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA441814

Entities

People

  • L. Molent

Organizations

  • Defence Science and Technology Group

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Counter WMD
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accident Investigations
  • Aerial Warfare
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Construction
  • Ferrium
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Horizontal Stabilizers
  • Materials
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Military Aircraft
  • Military Aviation
  • Spars
  • Test Facilities
  • Transport Aircraft

Readers

  • European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Structural Health Monitoring of Composite Structures.