Bringing together materials mechanics and modelling, this book provides a complete guide to damage mechanics of composite materials for engineers.

Engineering materials are routinely subjected to fatigue loading in a wide variety of applications in the aeronautical, automotive, nuclear plant, petroleum and transportation industries. Contemporary fatigue crack initiation and fatigue crack propagation methodologies are discussed while problems in the area of crack closure, loading spectra and multiaxial loading are addressed from both analytical and experimental aspects.

Written by a leading researcher in the field, this revised and updated second edition of a highly successful book provides an authoritative, comprehensive and unified treatment of the mechanics and micromechanisms of fatigue in metals, non-metals and composites. The author discusses the principles of cyclic deformation, crack initiation and crack growth by fatigue, covering both microscopic and continuum aspects. The book begins with discussions of cyclic deformation and fatigue crack initiation in monocrystalline and polycrystalline ductile alloys as well as in brittle and semi-/non-crystalline solids. Total life and damage-tolerant approaches are then introduced in metals, non-metals and composites followed by more advanced topics. The book includes an extensive bibliography and a problem set for each chapter, together with worked-out example problems and case studies. This will be an important reference for anyone studying fracture and fatigue in materials science and engineering, mechanical, civil, nuclear and aerospace engineering, and biomechanics.

Fatigue and Durability of Structural Materials explains how mechanical material behavior relates to the design of structural machine components. The major emphasis is on fatigue and failure behavior using engineering models that have been developed to predict, in advance of service, acceptable fatigue and other durability-related lifetimes. The book covers broad classes of materials used for high-performance structural applications such as aerospace components, automobiles, and power generation systems. Coverage focuses on metallic materials but also addresses unique capabilities of important nonmetals. The concepts are applied to behavior at room or ambient temperatures; a planned second volume will address behavior at higher-temperatures. The volume is a repository of the most significant contributions by the authors to the art and science of material and structural durability over the past half century. During their careers, including 40 years of direct collaboration, they have developed a host of durability models that are based on sound physical and engineering principles. Yet, the models and interpretation of behavior have a unique simplicity that is appreciated by the practicing engineer as well as the beginning student. In addition to their own pioneering work, the authors also present the work of numerous others who have provided useful results that have moved progress in these fields. This book will be of immense value to practicing mechanical and materials engineers and designers charged with producing structural components with adequate durability. The coverage is appropriate for a range of technical levels from undergraduate engineering students through material behavior researchers and model developers. It will be of interest to personnel in the automotive and off-highway vehicle manufacturing industry, the aeronautical industry, space propulsion and the power generation/conversion industry, the electric power industry, the machine tool industry, and any industry associated with the design and manufacturing of mechanical equipment subject to cyclic loads.

Fatigue of structures and materials covers a wide scope of different topics. The purpose of the present book is to explain these topics, to indicate how they can be analyzed, and how this can contribute to the designing of fatigue resistant structures and to prevent structural fatigue problems in service. Chapter 1 gives a general survey of the topic with brief comments on the signi?cance of the aspects involved. This serves as a kind of a program for the following chapters. The central issues in this book are predictions of fatigue properties and designing against fatigue. These objectives cannot be realized without a physical and mechanical understanding of all relevant conditions. In Chapter 2 the book starts with basic concepts of what happens in the material of a structure under cyclic loads. It illustrates the large number of variables which can affect fatigue properties and it provides the essential background knowledge for subsequent chapters. Different subjects are presented in the following main parts: • Basic chapters on fatigue properties and predictions (Chapters 2–8) • Load spectra and fatigue under variable-amplitude loading (Chapters 9–11) • Fatigue tests and scatter (Chapters 12 and 13) • Special fatigue conditions (Chapters 14–17) • Fatigue of joints and structures (Chapters 18–20) • Fiber-metal laminates (Chapter 21) Each chapter presents a discussion of a speci?c subject.

Fatigue failure is a multi-stage process. It begins with the initiation of cracks, and with continued cyclic loading the cracks propagate, finally leading to the rupture of a component or specimen. The demarcation between the above stages is not well-defined. Depending upon the scale of interest, the variation may span three orders of magnitude. For example, to a material scientist an initiated crack may be of the order of a micron, whereas for an engineer it can be of the order of a millimetre. It is not surprising therefore to see that investigation of the fatigue process has followed different paths depending upon the scale of phenomenon under investigation. Interest in the study of fatigue failure increased with the advent of industrial ization. Because of the urgent need to design against fatigue failure, early investiga tors focused on prototype testing and proposed failure criteria similar to design formulae. Thus, a methodology developed whereby the fatigue theories were proposed based on experimental observations, albeit at times with limited scope. This type of phenomenological approach progressed rapidly during the past four decades as closed-loop testing machines became available.

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.