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Old 12-25-2011, 04:10 PM
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If it helps I can assure you silicone is not effected by mechanical cyclic loading so it's immune to fatigue type failures in most cases such as aquariums. The only fatigue issues with silicone are related more to electronics which have thermal cyclic loading. In addition even if fatigue failure was possible the amplitude from the cyclic loading is actually very small, the pressure from the wave is only fluctuating a few inches in comparison to the total pressure of 20+ or so, so it's not even close to something that would raise fatigue concerns anyway. Fatigue issues relate more from reverse cyclic loading where the load reverses direction created an a total amplitude greater than the actual static load (similar to why bolts are always preloaded).

The simple fact is fatigue failure is completely impossible from a wave box and it's a bunch of BS and like most stuff on the web is just spread by a bunch of people who know very little about the subject.
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