Editorial: Structural integrity and durability of engineering materials and components

Abstract

Engineering components and structural details may be subjected in service to quite different loading conditions: high-cycle or low-cycle fatigue (with constant or variable amplitudes), static loadings and/or overloads, vibrations, creep, stress corrosion–just to cite a few examples. Whatever the loading condition, an assessment of the structural integrity for a structural detail must ensure an adequate safety margin against unexpected failures with potential catastrophic consequences. This goal is pursued by the use of theoretical, numerical and experimental approaches, often combined. For example, laboratory tests to estimate fundamental material properties, or full-scale tests to validate a finite element analysis implementing suitable strength models. Most often, scientific research deals with each of these areas separately, by proposing unconventional strength criteria, developing numerical techniques, or testing the durability of specific categories of traditional and advanced materials. The four papers of this Research Topic address some of the above-mentioned Research Topic by means of theoretical and/or experimental studies that cover application areas from mechanical to civil engineering. The paper by Gaidai et al. presents an approach to predict the extreme response in the mooring system of a floating wind turbine (FWT) based on extreme value statistics and a bivariate correction approach. As a case study, the approach is applied to a 10 MW large three-bladed FWT. The fully coupled aero-hydro-elastic-servo dynamic analysis of the FWT is performed by the open source simulation tool FAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures and Turbulence). The FAST tool computed the aerodynamic loads on the blades and hydrodynamic loads on semi-submersible floater, other than the structural dynamic response, and eventually returned the time series of anchor tension force and surge motion of the wind turbine under different operation conditions, to be processed in the OPEN ACCESS