This book provides practicing engineers, researchers, and students with a working knowledge of the fatigue design process and models under multiaxial states of stress and strain. Readers are introduced to the important considerations of multiaxial fatigue that differentiate it from uniaxial fatigue.

Problems of fatigue under multiaxial fatigue loads have been addressed in a very large number of research publications. The present publication is primarily a survey of biaxial fatigue under constant amplitude loading on metal specimens. It starts with the physical understanding of the fatigue phenomenon under biaxial fatigue loads. Various types of proportional and non-proportional biaxial fatigue loads and biaxial stress distributions in a material are specified. Attention is paid to the fatigue limit, crack nucleation, initial micro crack growth and subsequent macro-crack in different modes of crack growth. The interference between the upper and lower surfaces of a fatigue crack is discussed. Possibilities for predictions of biaxial fatigue properties are analysed with reference to the similarity concept. The significance of the present understanding for structural design problems is considered. The book is completed with a summary of major observations.

The European Structural Integrity Society (ESIS) Technical Commitee on Fatigue of Engineering Materials and Structures (TC3) decided to compile a Special Technical Publication (ESIS STP) based on the 115 papers presented at the 6th International Conference on Biaxial/Multiaxial Fatigue and Fracture. The 25 papers included in the STP have been extended and revised by the authors. The conference was held in Lisbon, Portugal, on 25-28 June 2001, and was chaired by Manual De Freitas, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon. The meeting, organised by the Instituto Superior Tecnico and sponsored by the Portuguese Minesterio da Cienca e da Tecnologia and by the European Structural Integrity Society, was attended by 151 delegates from 20 countries. The papers in the present book deal with the theoretical, numerical and experimental aspects of the Multiaxial fatigue and fracture of engineering materials and structures. They are divided in to the following six sections; Multiaxial Fatigue of Welded Structures; High cycle Multiaxial fatigue; Non proportional and Variable-Amplitude loading; Defects, Notches, Crack Growth; Low Cycle Multiaxial Fatigue; Applications and Testing Methods. As is well-known, most engineering components and structures in the mechanical, aerospace, power generation, and other industries are subjected to multiaxial loading during their service life. One of the most difficult tasks in design against fatigue and fracture is to translate the information gathered from uniaxial fatigue and fracture tests on engineering materials into applications involving complex states of cyclic stress-strain conditions. This book is the result of co-operation between many researchers from different laboratories, universities and industries in a number of countries.

The 36 paper spresented in this volume were presented at the second international conference on biaxial/multiaxial fatigue.

The design of mechanical structures with improved and predictable durability cannot be achieved without a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of fatigue damage and more specifically the relationships between the microstructure of materials and their fatigue properties. Written by leading experts in the field, this book (which is complementary to Fatigue of Materials and Structures: Application to Damage and Design, also edited by Claude Bathias and André Pineau), provides an authoritative, comprehensive and unified treatment of the mechanics and micromechanisms of fatigue in metals, polymers and composites. Each chapter is devoted to one of the major classes of materials or to different types of fatigue damage, thereby providing overall coverage of the field. The book deals with crack initiation, crack growth, low-cycle fatigue, gigacycle fatigue, shorts cracks, fatigue micromechanisms and the local approach to fatigue damage, corrosion fatigue, environmental effects and variable amplitude loadings, and will be an important and much used reference for students, practicing engineers and researchers studying fracture and fatigue in numerous areas of mechanical, structural, civil, design, nuclear, and aerospace engineering as well as materials science.

A collection of papers from a conference which focuses on problems in biaxial and multiaxial fatigue research and the application of adequate design criteria to engineering solutions.

This collection presents papers from the 149th Annual Meeting & Exhibition of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.