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Academic Staff Research Interests Current Research Projects Selected
Publications Current Vacancies Consulting
Work |
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STRUCTURAL
INTEGRITY RESEARCH |
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Structural Integrity
(SI) has been defined by Dr Steve Roberts (University of Oxford) as the science and technology of the
margin between safety and disaster. As noted in the
paper entitled Engineering Materialism and Structural Integrity, drivers in the quest
for structural integrity have been primarily financial, involving the desire
of manufacturers and investors to maximise return on investment, the desire
of insurers to have a pre-defined risk, and the possibility of litigation in
the event of a failure. One can loosely translate the title in terms of
financial drivers as: The
desire to make money through, and by, engineering has led to greater
structural reliability. Its engineering
import can be summarised as: The
application of science and artful working in order to stress materials such
that the arrangement and mutual relation of parts of complex structures
remain in an unimpaired and complete state. The
'application of science and artful working' is essentially the role of
engineering design and of structural integrity research. Engineering
design plays a key role in the creation of wealth by maximising the value of
engineered products to both purchaser and supplier. Research into
structural integrity provides the data, models and tools necessary to
performing statistically reliable life prediction. At the University of
Plymouth, structural integrity research focuses on the areas of fatigue and
fracture of materials, with current emphasis on weldments (MIG welds in high strength steels aluminium alloys,
friction stir welding and friction taper stud welding), fatigue crack growth,
fatigue crack shielding, synchrotron and neutron strain scanning of residual
stresses (particularly as a function of process conditions in welds), crack
initiation and early growth, multi-parameter fracture mechanics
modelling of stresses and strains around fatigue cracks, and finite
element numerical modelling. Much of this work is cross-disciplinary
and collaborative with international partners. Current activities of the group and information regarding some recent publications are given below and on linked pages. |
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DSc(Eng) (Witwatersrand) DTech (Honoris Causa) (PE Technikon), PhD
(Cambridge),
BSc(Eng) (Witwatersrand), CEng, FIMMM Tel: +44 1752 586 021 Email: mjames@plymouth.ac.uk Career
Résumé Jan 2010- Head: School of Marine Science & Engineering
and Associate Dean Apr 2007 - July 2008 Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Plymouth Jan 2003 -
July 2009 Dean of the Faculty of
Technology, University of Plymouth Aug 1996 - Professor of Mechanical
Engineering, Department of Mechanical & Marine Engineering, University of
Plymouth. Jul 1993 - Jan 1994 Sabbatical leave in the Department of
Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield. Nov 1987 - Jan 1988 Visiting Assistant Professor at the Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering. May 1985 - Jun 1996 Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer then
Associate Professor in the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering,
University of the Witwatersrand. Acting Head of
Department July 1992 - January 1993 and May 1994. Head of Branch of Physical Metallurgy
within the School of Process and Materials Engineering from January 1995. Oct 1983 - May 1985 Research Associate in the Department of
Metallurgy and Materials Science, University of Cambridge. Jul 1978 - Aug 1980 Industrial experience with Rhodesian
Ministry of Water Development as a Mechanical Engineer then the National
Railways of Zimbabwe as an Assistant Mechanical Engineer (AME)
with Southern Area Motive Power (including 2 months running Steam Traction
from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls. Jan 1977-Jun 1978 National Service with the Rhodesian Police
Force (BSAP) as an armaments technician. Other
Significant Activities 2010 Honorary
Membership of the Gruppo Italiano
Frattura in recognition of “outstanding achievements in the
research fields of Material Science, Fracture Mechanics and Structural
Integrity”. 2008 Invited to be the John
Orr Memorial Lecturer for the South African Institution of Mechanical
Engineering. The lecture is intended
to celebrate the achievements and contribution of Professor John Orr OBE,
Hon. LLD (1870-1954) to engineering and engineering
education in South Africa. This
prestigious lecture is given by an engineer of international standing. My chosen topic was ‘Reliable Products and
Structures’. 2008 Appointed Professore di Chiara Fama
and Docente
at the Università degli Studi
di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy (founded 1391) in the Department of Engineering from
January 2008. 2007 Appointed Honorary
Professor of Nelson
Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa in the
Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering for 5 years from August
2007. 2005 Appointed Advisory Professor of the Southwest
Jiaotong University, Chengdu, PR China in the National Laboratory of Traction Power, September 2005. 2003 Honorary award of title of Visiting
Professor to the Materials and Engineering Research Institute (RAE 5-rated in
2001) at Sheffield-Hallam University for 3 years from June 2003. Extended for a further 3 years in September
2006. Invited to join the Advisory
Board of the Regional Development Authority designated Centre for Industrial
Collaboration and the MERI Policy Board for 3 years
from March 2004. Re-appointed for a
further 3 years until 31 August 2009 in the Faculty of Arts, Computing,
Engineering and Sciences. 2008- Co-Editor (Europe, Middle East & Africa) for the International Journal of Fatigue an Elsevier publication. Regional Editor from 1999-2007, Acting Editor in
1998. Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Elsevier journal Engineering Failure Analysis. 2000-2008 Invited to join the EPSRC Peer Review
College. The Engineering & Physical Sciences Research
Council draws its referees and panel members from this College of experts,
nominated by those active in the appropriate research areas. 1999-2001 Invited by the Higher Education Funding
Councils to serve as a member of subject panel 30 Mechanical, Aeronautics & Manufacturing
Engineering for the 2001
Research Assessment Exercise in the UK. 1998-2002 Chairman of the Devon & Cornwall Group
of the Institute of
Materials. 1994-1996 Chairman of the Central Branch of the South African Institution of
Mechanical Engineering. Awards 2003 LT Campbell-Pitt
award of the South African Institution of Mechanical
Engineering for the most meritorious paper published in their Research
& Development Journal during 2002 1995 Ingham award of the South African
Institution of Mechanical Engineering (also in 1989 and 1988) for the best
short technical paper published in their journal. 1989 Research grant from the Richard Ward Foundation, University of
the Witwatersrand. 1986 Silver Research Medal of the South African
Institution of Mechanical Engineering. 1984 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the University of the
Witwatersrand, tenable for 2 years. 1981 Overseas Research Students award from the committee of
Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom,
renewed in 1982. 1980-1983 Beit Trust Postgraduate
Fellowship to support PhD study at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. Consulting
Work Professor James
has a strong record of successful failure analysis consulting work, having
dealt with more than 140 industrial failure analyses over the last 26
years. Much of this work was commissioned by lawyers (in both South
Africa and England), as part of litigation, or by insurance loss
adjusters. He has also given expert evidence in legal cases, and in
official government enquiries into failures. Information
given on a hyperlinked web page illustrates the range of failure analysis undertaken by
Professor James, often commissioned by loss adjusters or lawyers.
Examples cover fracture on a walking dragline, stress corrosion
cracking of a Grade 304 stainless steel pipe, and liquid metal embrittlement
(during galvanising) of a ferritic steel carburettor bolt. He established
a Close Corporation
in 1991 to handle consulting work on a professional basis and this ran very
successfully until 1996, when he moved from South Africa to England and
closed the business. Teaching He has a keen
interest in teaching undergraduates, and in short courses to industry,
particularly related to design, failure analysis, fatigue
and fracture mechanics. He has developed a web-based fracture mechanics tutorial, which allows
structured learning of problem solving skills in the area of linear elastic
fracture mechanics. It provides a
complete, self-contained package (with 24/7 availability) of industrially
focussed problems, applicable and directed theory, hints, and solutions, with
interactive graph plotting and calculation.
The hints are based on 15 years’ experience with the areas of
difficulty students find in tackling imprecise, crack orientated, and
open-ended fracture mechanics problems, from the standpoint of a conventional
fully specified, stress orientated, continuum mechanics background. It provides an excellent practical introduction to
applied linear elastic fracture mechanics. He has also
developed web-based learning material for a first year module entitled Design as a Generic Tool.
This page
provides a portal into a managed learning environment aimed at assisting in
teaching the philosophy of generic design problem solution, and enabling
innovative, thoughtful and ethical analysis of engineering systems and their
impact on society and the environment.
This internet resource draws together structured information on:
module administration; important diagrams; illustrative case studies of
innovative design; learning
from case studies of engineering failures (either structural,
technological, market assessment, or management) arising from inadequate
consideration of one, or more, aspects of the overall multi-facetted design
process; techniques available to encourage inventive problem solving; ethics
and sustainability. In 2001 he
was awarded one-of-ten Teaching Development Grants by the UK Centre for
Materials Education, part of the Learning and Teaching Support Network funded
by the HE Councils for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
This grant was used to develop an interactive
learning package in failure analysis through industrial case studies. This package is
interactive and illustrates a number of applications of some techniques
widely used in industrial failure analysis, e.g. metallography, fractography
and simple fracture mechanics. The
examples were chosen and presented so as to guide the learner through the
analytical steps and thought processes used in solving such problems. |
Associated
Staff
Dr Colin
Christopher (Computing & Mathematics)
Professor Eann Patterson
(University of Liverpool)
Professor Danie
Hattingh (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa)
Dr Axel Steuwer
(University of Lund, Sweden)
Mark Newby - PhD Student
Dr Yanwei Lu
– PDRA
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Research
Interests |
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An outline of
current and some of the past research projects can be found on the
hyperlinked web page. It includes information
on recent publications, including some conference papers and reports in PDF
format, and also details principal research equipment.
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