The strict liability concept of product liability generally prevails in the United States. This concept states that the manufacturer of an article is liable for any damage or harm that results because of a defect. And it doesn’t matter whether the manufacturer knew about the defect, or even could have known about it. For example, suppose an article was manufactured, say, 10 years ago. And suppose at that time the article could not have been considered defective on the basis of all technological knowledge then available. Ten years later, according to the concept of strict liability, the manufacturer is still liable. Thus, under this concept, the plaintiff needs only to prove that the article was defective and that the defect caused some damage or harm. Negligence of the manufacturer
need not be proved. The best approaches to the prevention of product liability are good engineering in
analysis and design, quality control, and comprehensive testing procedures. Advertising managers often make glowing promises in the warranties and sales literature for a product. These statements should be reviewed carefully by the engineering staff to eliminate excessive promises and to insert adequate warnings and instructions for use. Stress and Strength The survival of many products depends on how the designer adjusts the maximum stresses in a component to be less than the component’s strength at critical locations. The designer must allow the maximum stress to be less than the strength by a sufficient margin so that despite the uncertainties, failure is rare. In focusing on the stress-strength comparison at a critical (controlling) location, we often look for “strength in the geometry and condition of use.” Strengths are the magnitudes of stresses at which something of interest occurs, such as the proportional limit, 0.2 percent-offset yielding, or fracture (see Sec. 2–1). In many cases, such events represent the stress level at which loss of function occurs. Strength is a property of a material or of a mechanical element. The strength of an element depends on the choice, the treatment, and the processing of the material. Consider, for example, a shipment of springs. We can associate a strength with a specific spring. When this spring is incorporated into a machine, external forces are applied that result in load-induced stresses in the spring, the magnitudes of which depend on its geometry and are independent of the material and its processing. If the spring is removed from the machine unharmed, the stress due to the external forces will return to zero. But the strength remains as one of the properties of the spring. Remember, then, that strength is an inherent property of a part, a property built into the part because of the use of a particular material and process. Various metalworking and heat-treating processes, such as forging, rolling, and cold forming, cause variations in the strength from point to point throughout a part. The spring cited above is quite likely to have a strength on the outside of the coils different from its strength on the inside because the spring has been formed by a cold winding process, and the two sides may not have been deformed by the same amount. Remember, too, therefore, that a strength value given for a part may apply to only a particular point or set of points on the part. In this book we shall use the capital letter S to denote strength, with appropriate subscripts to denote the type of strength. Thus, Sy is a yield strength, Su an ultimate strength, Ssy a shear yield strength, and Se an endurance strength. In accordance with accepted engineering practice, we shall employ the Greek letters σ (sigma) and τ(tau) to designate normal and shear stresses, respectively. Again, various subscripts will indicate some special characteristic. For example, σ1 is a principal normal stress, σy a normal stress component in the y direction, and σr a normal stress component in the radial direction. Stress is a state property at a specific point within a body, which is a function of load, geometry, temperature, and manufacturing processing. In an elementary course in mechanics of materials, stress related to load and geometry is emphasized with some discussion of thermal stresses. However, stresses due to heat treatments, molding, assembly, etc. are also important and are sometimes neglected.
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