FATIGUE LIFE CALCULATION OF FLAWED STRUCTURES - BASED ON ARTIFICIAL NEURAL-NETWORK WITH SPECIAL LEARNING SET

A method of calculating the fatigue life of flawed structures, by usin g an artificial neural network with the help of a special learning set , is discussed. The special learning set is composed of manmade exampl es and experimental ones including selected experimental fatigue data for two kinds of specimens. The neural network learns information abou t the fatigue life of flawed weldments from the special learning set f irst; then the trained neural network is employed to calculate the fat igue Life of flawed specimens. The calculated lives are compared with experimental lives; this shows that the neural network and special lea rning set can calculate the fatigue Life of flawed weldments quite sat isfactorily. The network is also trained by using the normal learning set and tested by using the same samples to check the effect of the sp ecial learning set. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .