par13del wrote:A couple of my concerns, not much discussion on metal fatigue on the BUFF but plenty on other a
There is something about being an old design that benefit from a fatigue stand point. The B-52 was started a a concept on a napkin the design back then was concentrated on strength and not really optimized to any degree like a modern airliner. There was no algorithm or computers, so designers build in extra margins in their calculations. That resulted in margins for fatigue.
Strange thing about fatigue is if you have extra strength and stay away from the metal deformation limit, your cycle life increases exponentially.
And of course, they probably cycled a frame through multiple life times to make sure.
bt