The book summarizes recent international research and experimental developments regarding fatigue crack growth investigations of rubber materials. It shows the progress in fundamental as well as advanced research of fracture investigation of rubber material under fatigue loading conditions, especially from the experimental point of view. However, some chapters will describe the progress in numerical modeling and physical description of fracture mechanics and cavitation phenomena in rubbers. Initiation and propagation of cracks in rubber materials are dominant phenomena which determine the lifetime of these soft rubber materials and, as a consequence, the lifetime of the corresponding final rubber parts in various fields of application. Recently, these phenomena became of great scientific interest due to the development of new experimental methods, concepts and models. Furthermore, crack phenomena have an extraordinary impact on rubber wear and abrasion of automotive tires; and understanding of crack initiation and growth in rubbers will help to support the growthing number of activities and worldwide efforts of reduction of tire wear losses and abrasion based emissions.

In this book, the authors present current research in the study of the mechanisms, behaviour and analysis of fatigue crack growths. Topics discussed in this compilation include the unified fatigue crack growth rate model; practical tools for statistical fatigue design; probablistic algorithms performance evaluation and application in multi-fractured structures; three dimensional effects in the fracture mechanics of bi-dimensional specimens; fatigue crack propagation mechanism in porous open pore metal foams; lifetime predictions for short fatigue crack's initiation-propagation by basic mechanical properties; variable amplitude fatigue crack growth in selected aluminium alloys; fatigue threshold R-curves for analysis of short fatigue cracks; and multiaxial fatigue life prediction for lateral notched round bars made of high strength steel.

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.

This book contains the fully peer-reviewed papers presented at the Third Engineering Foundation Conference on Small Fatigue Cracks, held under the chairmanship of K.S. Ravichandran and Y. Murakami during December 6-11, 1998, at the Turtle Bay Hilton, Oahu, Hawaii. This book presents a state-of-the-art description of the mechanics, mechanisms and applications of small fatigue cracks by most of the world's leading experts in this field. Topics ranging from the mechanisms of crack initiation, small crack behavior in metallic, intermetallic, ceramic and composite materials, experimental measurement, mechanistic and theoretical models, to the role of small cracks in fretting fatigue and the application of small crack results to the aging aircraft and high-cycle fatigue problems, are covered.

This comprehensive overview of the whole field of fatigue and fracture of metallic materials covers both the theoretical background and some of the latest experimental techniques. It provides a summary of the complex interactions between material microstructure and cracks, classifying them with respect to the overall damage process with a focus on microstructurally short cracks and dynamic embrittlement. It furthermore introduces new concepts for the numerical treatment of fatigue microcrack propagation and their implementation in fatigue-life prediction models.This comprehensive overview of the whole field of fatigue and fracture of metallic materials covers both the theoretical background and the latest experimental techniques. It provides a summary of the complex interactions between material microstructure and cracks, classifying them with respect to the overall damage process. It furthermore introduces new concepts for the numerical treatment of fatigue microcrack propagation and their implementation in fatigue-life prediction models.

The studies on the phenomena of fatigue in metals, and especially on the formation and growth rate of cracks have been conducted in 1972-1974 with continued intensity. Their results contribute to expanding our knowledge and give us a new insight into the sphere of metal fatigue which is a highly interdiscipline field. This makes the continuous amending and modifying of books on metal fatigue a necessity, unfortunately often related with the not easy task of changing one's opinions and critical analysis of established earlier notions. These aims were my chief concern when preparing the present edition of my book in which I made use of carefully selected new information from 1972-1973 and partly 1974 reports. This new matter has been included in many instances just to signal new facts or findings, since the limited space did not allow me to give them the amount of consideration they deserve. The book has been further supplemented with the results of micrographic studies conducted in co-operation with J. Kozubowski for which lowe him special thanks. I am also indebted to Mr. H. Mughrabi from Stuttgart for allowing me to publish in this book his very interesting micrographs of dislocation structures. Finally I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr. E. Lepa for his concern in producing a good English translation of my book.

This book contains full papers presented at the First Virtual Conference on Mechanical Fatigue (VCMF 2020), which was organised by the University of Porto (FEUP, Portugal), the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland), University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (China), Siberian Federal University (Russia), and the ESIS/TC12 Technical Committee (European Structural Integrity Society–ESIS), between 9 and 11 of September 2020. This conference was intended to be a forum of discussion of new research concepts, equipment, technology, materials and structures and other scientific advances within the field of mechanical fatigue and fracture. The first edition of the VCMF 2020 event has reached more than 60 participants from more than 20 nationalities demonstrating the vitality of this new event.