Article: “Better predictions of the working life of industrial components”
“A minor disparity between an established mathematical model to predict creep crack growth behavior in materials in high-temperature environments and actual data has prompted Dr. Warwick Payten to reassess the approach and revise the model.”
“Being able to more accurately predict crack growth in real components is highly useful because it allows you to potentially extend the life of operating industrial plants and conventional, solar and nuclear power stations with confidence,” said Payten, a senior nuclear fuel cycle researcher.” https://phys.org/news/2020-04-life-industrial-components.html
With this RLE trust plays a critical role because of the importance of the components. It is one thing to predict how many Frappuccinos Starbucks will sell. Predicting the lifespan of nuclear power plant parts is another. It is extremely important for the engineers to be able to trust the model. However, the trust is not absolute as this prediction model was checked, found to have issues, and altered.