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Obituary by David R. Hayhurst and Robert M. McMeeking in the International Journal of Mechanical Sciences, Vol. 76, pp 166-169, November 2013:
He introduced simplified methods of analysis; benefitting the Nuclear Industry and Aerospace-Rocketry.
Fred Leckie, who has died aged 84, made a significant contribution to the safety of Nuclear Power Systems, and to the use of Ceramic Matrix Composite materials in advanced engines for aerospace and rocket systems, by aiding the understanding of how materials and structures deform, damage and fail when stressed at very high temperatures.
Traditional industrial design methods involve procedures that focussed on elastic operation and considered failure by fatigue due to repeated loading and unloading, and usually excluded the possibility of failure by repeated plastic deformation or creep rupture {progressive plastic deformation and failure at temperature under constant load}. However, for the design of the world's first nuclear reactors in the 1950s and 1960s such procedures were inadequate. Because of nuclear irradiation the possibility of replacing particular components in a reactor system that had reached the end of their serviceable lifetime was not an option (as was the case for gas and steam turbines, and components in the petro-chemical industry); and new design methodologies were required that dealt with lifetimes of 25 years or more.
The key issues were twofold: firstly, the shell-like nature of the pressure containment vessel. . .
For more see the link:
Prof. Frederick Alexander Leckie (1929-2013)
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