From a November 1995 symposium in Norfolk, Virginia 11 papers report on how computers are playing an ever greater role in testing for fatigue and fracture as applications have become more sophisticated and hardware smaller and more powerful over the past few years. Covering data acquisition, simulat

Provides both specific and general information regarding state-of-the art materials testing using automation technology as a means of: improving the reliability of data; eliminating the need for constant operator supervision; running tests that would be impossible without a computer; and reducing an

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.

These volumes cover the properties, processing, and applications of metals and nonmetallic engineering materials. They are designed to provide the authoritative information and data necessary for the appropriate selection of materials to meet critical design and performance criteria.