Abstract
A major source of confusion for students is the expression ‘safety factor’. It may be of some use in a qualitative sense, indicating which factors in a problem tend towards safety and which towards danger of failure. The trouble starts when attempting to give it a numerical value. In design practice there is no single value for assessing safety margins, as can be seen from the examples below.
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© 1976 Peter Polak
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Polak, P. (1976). How Strength can Fail. In: A Background to Engineering Design. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02707-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02707-1_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-18771-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-02707-1
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