Remaining life assessment of engineering components

A structure or a component is expected to perform specific functions for a minimum specified duration of time. If it ceases to do so, it is said to have failed. The consequence of service failure can be tragic and expensive. There are innumerable cases of engineering disasters resulting in loss of life and property. Therefore, utmost care and attention are required to be given to critical structures / components to ensure that such incidents do not take place. Life assessment exercise performed at regular intervals is a means to ensure absence of such tragic service failure. It gives us an estimate of remaining life of the component, which is essential to plan future course of action so that it could be used till the very end of its real life. Recent development of powerful non-destructive techniques and availability of modem computational facility at affordable cost has made this a routine exercise for many critical applications. This paper describes the basic principles behind remaining life assessment of engineering components and also presents some of our experiences.